In one of the most significant local municipal moves in decades, ownership of the Cullman County Landfill soon will be changing hands.

Thanks to a non-binding agreement recognized this week between the Cullman County Commission and the City of Cullman, the two governments are set to share equally in the expected forthcoming purchase of the privately-owned facility from Cullman Environmental, Inc., splitting the estimated $27 million cost of the property, located just outside of Dodge City in southern Cullman County, via separate municipal bond issues of approximately $14 million each.

The county commission took the first step this week in rolling out the 50/50 split-purchase process, with the Cullman City Council expected to take up its formal role in the transaction at its regular meeting on Monday. Under anticipated terms of the sale, the landfill will become a municipally-owned entity rather than a privately-owned one, set under operational oversight of a newly-created body to be known as the Solid Waste Disposal Authority (SWDA) of the City and County of Cullman.

The new SWDA authority is expected to consist of five appointed seats on its board of directors, with none of the board members receiving compensation for his or her service. The county commission and Cullman City Council each will name two members to the board, with the fifth and final seat to be filled by an internal appointment selected and voted on by the other four board members.

In recent years, the city and county have leased the landfill from Cullman Environmental, hauling garbage to the site via their own respective sanitation staffs, while the facility’s on-site operations have been handled by Cullman Environmental employees. Once established, the new SWDA board will take over on-site staffing and personnel duties at the landfill, while both of the separate bond issues that finance the property — as well as revenues generated from waste disposal fees — will be claimed by the City of Cullman and the county commission.

Citing logistical issues at the landfill site as well as a proportionally higher share of landfill usage by residents whom the commission represents, associate county commissioner Garry Marchman cast the lone dissenting vote this week on a pair of measures establishing the county’s commitment to the purchase. Marchman did, however, unite with his four commission colleagues in approving a $650,000 payment of earnest money to Cullman Environmental as a good-faith step toward securing the county’s partial ownership of the property.

Currently, the landfill site occupies 226 acres, with approximately 55 acres in use as active landfill space. Though that leaves significant room for near-term expansion, the memo of understanding recognizes the purchase not only of the existing landfill property, but additional contiguous acreage previously identified by Cullman Environmental for possible landfill use. The combined $27 million purchase price for the property, said county officials, reflects the acquisition of both the current 226 acres, as well as the contiguous additional land.

Commissioners said Cullman Environmental approached local leaders with a first-look offer on buying the landfill, with the company’s current 30-year lease agreements with the city and county already set to expire on Oct. 1. Though the company likely would be able to fetch a higher price for the land on the open market, commissioners indicated that its local owners sought a transfer of ownership that would both secure the area’s landfill needs for generations to come, while also placing control of the facility in the hands of not-for-profit local governments — rather than a private, for-profit owner — in the interest of keeping disposal fees low.

With both its existing footprint as well as the additional land included in the proposed sale, commissioners anticipate that the landfill will continue to have an operational life of nearly 100 years, alleviating a key infrastructural concern while simultaneously retaining local control over its ownership and usage. They also said that disposal fees are not expected to rise for local residential and commercial customers as a result of the purchase, even as the majority of Alabama’s remaining landfills — numbered at fewer than three dozen, according to statistics provided by the commission — are now run by private companies whose rates reflect a profit motive.