A study that could result in the county closing and consolidating convenience sites is underway.

Engineering firm CDM Smith is studying the 10 locations currently accepting trash in Beaufort County — three on the south side of the Pamlico and seven on the north side of the river.

Residents are down one site, as the county closed the Pamlico Beach convenience site in December, after the property owners asked the county to buy the property or vacate.

“The site’s been cleaned and remediated and turned back over,” said Brian Alligood, Beaufort County’s manager. “All the environmental stuff came back clean.”

CDM Smith is also assessing the Ransomville site, closest to the Pamlico Beach site, to determine changes needed to make the facility for more user-friendly. Alligood said he’s expecting that report in the coming weeks and bids for construction to go out in March.

Part of the motive behind the countywide assessment is Beaufort County’s unique geography, and trying to provide equal services to all residents on either side of the river that bisects the county.

“We’re essentially operating two counties. You’ve got to provide the same services on the south side and the north side,” Alligood said, adding that same services are hampered  by a lack of transportation across the river in the county’s eastern region. “It necessitates having additional levels of service.”

The effort to cut costs of county convenience sites align with bringing services to the same level found in counties of Beaufort County’s size and population, Alligood said.

“If you look around at counties of our size, what we find is they have fewer total sites and they operate those sites with fewer hours,” he said. “They’re called convenience sites, and they have become very, very convenient. When that level of service becomes accepted and demanded then people don’t like it when it changes. You either have to increase the rates, which people don’t like, or you cut back on the service hours, which people don’t like.”

Alligood said he’s expecting CDM Smith’s countywide assessment to be submitted in March.

“We asked that we get that quick as possible so we would have that to work with for the budget in the coming year,” he said.