Blaine County residents could see a rise in garbage fees as early as April.
The county commissioners announced at public hearings Tuesday that they will draft a resolution to increase the tipping fees at the Ohio Gulch Transfer Station by $10 a ton, or 18 percent. Tipping fees are charges levied on garbage haulers such as Clear Creek Disposal that dump trash at the transfer station.
Fees are charged by the ton, and Clear Creek and other contractors currently pay $55 per ton of garbage they take from homes and businesses in the valley to the transfer station. If the county resolution is drafted and approved, haulers will pay $65 a ton, an extra cost they will likely pass on to their customers.
"An 18 percent increase in tipping fees will directly result in an increase in the price people pay," said Mike Goitiandia, owner of Clear Creek Disposal.
Goitiandia said Clear Creek would need to consult with the cities it has contracts with to determine what the county's rate hike means for customers.
The fees are being raised due to the transfer station's revenue shortfall, an estimated $200,000 a year that has been attributed to the dramatic drop in solid waste coming into the transfer station over the past four years.
According to Dave Lore, executive director of the Southern Idaho Solid Waste District, the amount of garbage coming into the transfer station has dropped by nearly 41 percent since 2006.
"It's pretty significant," Lore said in an interview.
Lore said that the reduction in garbage is due to a drop in construction waste, which has gone down significantly since the recession. He said construction waste used to bring in a significant amount of fees while costing less to process.
"We have almost no construction," he said. "The homeowner waste really hasn't changed that much, it's just that there isn't as much of the [other] waste that was subsidizing the costs."
The transfer station still must find a way to pay for labor and to make payments on the capital improvement loans it took out to renovate the station in 2007.
The renovations were made with the expectation that the station would need to handle large amounts of construction waste, an expectation that was thwarted by the economic downturn. Lore said while the cost of labor and transporting the waste to the Milner Butte landfill west of Burley are dropping, they are not dropping enough.
"Fee increases are required if you want to maintain the same level of service," Lore told the commissioners.
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Though the county's resolving to raise tipping fees effective next year will not have an immediate impact on customers, Environmental Resource Center Executive Director Craig Barry said he expects the higher rates to eventually result in customers' throwing less away.
Barry said that eventually, all cities may turn to the type of garbage system Hailey has, under which customers pay garbage rates based on the size of the containers they use, what is known as a "pay as you throw" system.
"For those communities that have a direct financial incentive to recycle, such as Hailey, the increase should provide an even stronger incentive," he said.
Commissioner Larry Schoen said Tuesday that he worried an increase in garbage fees may result in an increase in illegal dumping on public lands. That is a concern, Barry said, but not a major one.
"When [done] in conjunction with a coordinated law enforcement effort, it's a non-issue," he said.
Though the tip fee increase will eventually impact all county residents who have their garbage hauled away, few turned out to comment. At the two public hearings, one held Tuesday morning and one held Tuesday evening, only seven members of the public turned out and only one commented. Four of the seven were high school students observing for a government class.
Commissioner Angenie McCleary expressed surprise that no representatives of Ketchum, Sun Valley, Hailey or Bellevue were present, as the cities will need to hold public hearings to renegotiate their garbage contracts. County Administrator Derek Voss said he had contacted the cities and they were aware of what was going on.
"There were no surprises," Voss said.
Schoen said he would draft a resolution and bring it before the board for a vote.
Commissioner Tom Bowman said the resolution should include a reauthorization clause, which would require the county to reevaluate whether the higher tipping fees are still necessary as the economy recovers and construction waste increases.
The rate increase would likely not go into effect before April 1, to give Clear Creek Disposal time to renegotiate its franchise agreements with the county's municipalities.
Katherine Wutz: kwutz@mtexpress.com
A dump truck owned by garbage hauler Clear Creek Disposal pulls out of the Ohio Gulch Transfer Station on Thursday. The county announced on Tuesday that it plans to raise the fees haulers will pay to dump garbage at the station, an increase that Clear Creek said would be passed onto its clients. Photo by David N. Seelig
