The state Department of Environmental Resources earlier this week approved a draft agreement of Centre and Clinton counties' plan for cooperative solid waste disposal through the year 2010.

Centre County Commissioners yesterday received a letter from the state DER indicating approval of the county's revised 1985 Solid Waste Management Plan under state Act 101.

The commissioners, along with Centre County and Clinton County solid waste authorities, submitted to the DER the draft agreement to form an operational landfill in Clinton County by April 1990.

Officials submitted the draft after the county commissioners' meeting last week, said Robert Donaldson, director of the Centre County Solid Waste Authority.

"This (approval) is the end result of a large amount of work by many of us," he said.

Under the proposed agreement, Clinton County would receive Centre County's garbage at their landfill for the next 20 years, Donaldson said.

He added that Centre County's current dumping station at the Carlin Landfill in Snow Shoe, is expected to close in April next year, necessitating the move to Clinton.

Clinton County officials are in the process of applying for a DER permit to extend their existing landfill to accommodate the extra garbage, said Timm Fye, assistant director of the Clinton County Solid Waste Authority.

"We're putting the final application together now and it will go out sometime (in) late February or March," he said.

Fye said, however, that while the landfill should have the capacity to take 20 years of garbage, county officials have not finalized plans.

"The whole thing is open to negotiation," he said. "We're definitely not locked into this plan for 20 years."

Ron Sommers, a DER resources and planning coordinator, said the counties must present a revised plan to the DER by September 1990. The draft agreement must be finalized by the county commissioners and both authorities before the landfill is put into operation, he said.