Tipping fee hike worries haulers

LOWVILLE — Lewis County legislators on Friday were cautioned by staff and local trash haulers against invoking a too-drastic increase in tipping fees.

"It's not garbage, it's business," Bonnie K. Dening, long-time senior account clerk/typist for the county Solid Waste Department, said at a meeting of the legislative Transportation and Solid Waste Committee.

Mrs. Dening suggested that local haulers, who would bear the brunt of a tipping fee hike, be consulted to ensure the increase wouldn't be harmful to their businesses.

"They are taxpayers," she said. "They are part of the tax base. We have to find a balance."

A few local haulers in attendance Friday expressed concern that too large a fee hike at the county's transfer sites in Lowville and Croghan could result in a customer loss to larger companies, which could haul garbage directly to the Development Authority of the North Country landfill in the Jefferson County town of Rodman.

"Everybody shops price," Lowville area hauler Merle D. Roes said.

"I can certainly personally relate to the big guy squeezing out the little guy," said Legislator Philip C. Hathway, R-Harrisville. "That's not what we want to do."

Joseph C. "Chuck" Langs, the county's superintendent of highways and solid waste, also cautioned that a steep increase to residents could lead to more garbage "on the roadside or over a bank."

A recent study by Syracuse engineering firm Barton & Loguidice, funded by DANC, indicated that county tipping fees are not high enough to provide a self-sustaining system.

"It's well-run," John J. Condino from Barton & Loguidice said. "But you guys understand equipment and facilities need to be upgraded. There's never been any money set aside for that."

Alternatives like accepting St. Lawrence County's recyclables, exporting recyclables to an outside processing facility or having DANC or a private hauling firm oversee solid waste operations also were explored in the study.

DANC charges a tipping fee of $39 per ton to its member counties and commercial haulers who sign multiyear deals.

Lewis County charges $66 per ton for most garbage brought to its Lowville transfer site and $25 per cubic yard at its Croghan site, which doesn't have a scale. It adds a $7-per-ton surcharge on direct-hauled trash. By comparison, St. Lawrence County began charging $105 per ton in January.

Solid waste staff a couple of weeks ago suggested a tipping fee increase of $4 per ton to begin a move toward self-sufficiency. However, Mr. Hathway floated a more drastic approach, suggesting that self-sufficiency could be attained through a per-ton fee hike to $80.50 this year, then $95 in 2012.

Mr. Condino, a past technical services manager at DANC, said his firm's study was intended to provide suggestions on how to reach a "best-case scenario" of a self-sufficient system with up-to-date equipment and facilities, not to suggest that drastic changes are needed.

"This is a dynamic business that needs to be looked at every single year," he said.

The legislative committee took no action on the matter.