County sees success with appliance, chemicals, electronics collection
Taylor County’s solid waste and recycling committee gathered at the courthouse on Thursday, August 21, and went over numbers from recycling events held within the county.
On May 3, appliance and electronics collection functions were held in Medford and Gilman for a total of 45,000 pounds of electronics collected, including over 700 televisions and monitors. In addition, a household and agricultural clean sweep was held in Medford on June 12 with 138 residents participating, leading to a collection of 7,000 pounds of hazardous waste material and another 2,000 pounds of fluorescent lightbulbs in the four hours the event was open.
There have also been tire collection events held in Gilman, Medford, and the town of Holway during the month of August. The county is still waiting on numbers related to the tire collection but did state that it was difficult to keep track during Gilman’s event as it was raining the day of, likely leading to difficulty managing paperwork in the wet conditions.
There was some discussion about raising tire collection rates as one combine tire in Gilman was over 1,000 pounds, and multiple tires over 200 pounds were not accounted for, again likely due to the inclement weather. There were 81 participants among the three collection sites.
The committee also discussed the 2026 budget with many funds seeing carryover balances from the previous year. “If we didn’t have carryover, we’d be asking for increases,” said zoning administrator Kyle Noonan. There are some accounts, such as the recycling act and electronics collections, that are waiting for possible grants to come through.
Zoning The solid waste and recycling committee adjourned and the zoning committee began its session, starting with their 2026 budget. Noonan stated that the zoning department managed to keep their 2026 expenses under $49,000, utilizing a large portion of carryover funds to help fill any gaps.
“In the last 11 or 12 years I’ve done this I’ve raised my budget maybe two times,” Noonan said. “We operate pretty slim, we utilize what we have and don’t buy expensive stuff.”
Noonan stated that the computer program developed in-house to assist the zoning department will eventually be unable to support the department’s needs. He estimates that a new system could cost $40,000-$50,000 in startup alone with an annual fee close to $15,000.
In other business, the committee:
• Reviewed sanitary permits which are down from 66 the previous year to 61 currently, possibly due to inclement weather during the typical building season. “Sanitary is a good indicator of what construction is like in the county,” stated Noonan.
• Heard that new broadband maps are available on the UW-Madison extension Taylor County website at https:// taylor.extension.wisc.edu/extension-taylor-county-uwmadison/. The maps were created to assist customers with determining which broadband service in the area will best suit their needs.
• Discussed Private Onsite Waste Treatment System (POWTS) loan program changes. With the Northwest Regional Planning Commission (NWRPC) poised to take over housing assistance from the Taylor County Housing Authority (TCHS), the zoning department will now handle the current POWTS loans. NWRPC may eventually take over the loans once the dust has settled from the transition. There are currently three POWTS loans in the county with one landowner looking at refinancing and paying off their loan.
The POWTS manual has been altered to remove TCHS and insert the zoning department. The committee agreed that any new applications for POWTS loans will be brought to the committee for approval rather than basing approval on Noonan and the zoning department alone.
• Heard that there were 698 notices sent out to county residents this spring for drain field septic maintenance. Residents were given until August 15 to maintain their holding tanks with 244 people still noncompliant as of the meeting. Those 244 individuals will be sent secondary letters and any residents remaining will be issued citations. Reportedly less than 10 citations were issued last year.
• Received report that Haas, Inc. will dig a gravel pit in the town of Grover. In addition, Haas intends to reclaim the Kennedy pit in Westboro; they have begun closing it and hauling in topsoil as the weather allows. Another pit located in the town of McKinley will be taken over by the Department of Natural Resources, likely this fall.
