Within a year, Sandoval County residents may be able to obtain country records online but may be running out of room for their garbage.

Two presentations at Thursday's county commission meeting offered a stark contrast of today's technology. First, chief deputy county clerk Susan Utegg Pedersen, technology coordinator Mike Springfield and Joseph K. Burke, the CEO of Visual Information Inc., presented an update on the county's digitization of records.

Burke said his Colorado-based company is "96 to 98 percent" finished with scanning nearly 2 million documents, some of which date back more than 100 years, and 85 percent complete with indexing the documents for easy retrieval. "Sandoval County is way ahead of the rest of the nation when it comes to making this stuff available," Burke said.

Springfield and Utegg-Pedersen explained that the county was working on converting coding and programs from existing computers in hopes of getting the records online by the end of 2005.

County attorney David Mathews said he has been unsuccessful in retrieving 28 sets of documents and two sets of microfilm, some of which date back to 1903, from the state archives. The documents were originally placed in Santa Fe, where climate-controlled storage is used to help prevent further erosion, but the county wants them back so they can be digitized and backed up.

Later, Keith Gordon of Gordon Enviromental Inc. told the commission that while the county is enjoying increased revenues by accepting additional waste products at its landfill, it is fast running out of room.

Gordon's report showed the landfill took in just below 36,000 cubic yards of waste in November 2003, but that total jumped to nearly 61,000 cubic yards in June. Even at the slowest rate, Gordon estimated Unit II would be filled within 16 months and generate only $81,000 in revenue. At the current rate, the county could make $210,000 but might run out of room in six months.

The county still has Unit III available, and a timeline presented by Gordon estimates completion of Unit IV in September 2005.

The commission also:

• Approved a joint powers agreement with Bernalillo and Valencia counties for a regional juvenile detention center;

• Approved the transfer of an 18-foot boat to the sheriff's department from the state parks and recreation department to be used for patrol and search and rescue efforts on Cochiti Lake; and

• Adopted the final budget for fiscal year 2004-05, with only minor changes being made from the preliminary document, with adjustments for the accounting of certain grant programs. The county will receive $405,520 more than was originally projected.