Planning may now be focused on 35101 W. Valley Highway S. in Algona, but as the year winds down, two sites in Auburn stubbornly cling to the list of possible locales for King County’s new recycling and transfer station.

They are at 901 C St. SW, near the City’s Maintenance and Operations yard east of The Outlet Collection Mall, and at 28721 W. Valley Highway S. in north Auburn.

Despite clear evidence of construction activity going on at the north Auburn site, at the very spot where King County had talked about building a transfer station site to replace the 50-year-old transfer station in Pacific, the county has not written off the north Auburn site.

“I can’t comment further on the siting process while we’re still in discussions with property owners,” Doug Williams, media relations coordinator for the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks, said Tuesday.

Poe Construction of Auburn this year pitched into building a warehouse distribution center for the north Auburn property’s new owner, Panattoni Development Co. of Newport Beach, Calif.

“I don’t know what King County’s process is,” said Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus. “We think (construction on the north Auburn parcel) makes it far less desirable, but I don’t know if, legally speaking, it takes that property off the list of options.”

Algona Mayor Dave Hill was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

The Algona Transfer Station, like many of King County’s solid waste transfer stations, was built in the mid-1960s and is now outdated, over-capacity and lacks space to provide recycling services. A regional, multi-year planning effort that resulted in the Solid Waste Transfer and Waste Management Plan led King County to decided to replace the Algona Transfer Station with a new recycling and transfer station in the South King County area.

“The environmental review process undertaken by King County examines the probable significant adverse environmental impacts of this project for each site. This effort revealed issues at the two sites located in Auburn that would significantly affect the project cost and schedule. Such issues do not exist for the site located in Algona, next to the current facility,” according to King County’s website.

“The King County Solid Waste Division is in the process of discussing mitigation strategies with the City of Algona that would address the minor potential environmental impacts anticipated, and would allow the County to site the new station next to the existing station. These discussions are productive and ongoing,” according to the website.”