October 2, 2007
Trash talk set for hearing
By Meg Bernhardt
A year ago, Frederick County resident Bob Condon stood up at a public hearing to dissuade the county commissioners from supporting trash hauling franchising districts.
He will do the same tonight.
The commissioners are holding their annual public hearing on which bills to send with the county's delegation to Annapolis. County residents can speak to the commissioners about what should and shouldn't be included in the package during the hearing.
Many of the items proposed by the commissioners have been included before, including three trash-related proposals aimed at increasing recycling. Hauling franchising districts, for instance, would give the commissioners the ability to create districts and accept bids for haulers interested in providing service just within that district.
Currently, they can only accept bids county-wide or within incorporated municipalities.
Last year, hauling franchises failed when the county's state lawmakers said they heard too many complaints and questions from constituents.
The commissioners said many of the problems were created by misunderstandings, and vowed to get more people on board before taking it back to the General Assembly this year.
"We've been kind of evangelizing everywhere we go to say look, 'this is going to help,'" said Commissioner David Gray. "I know I take every opportunity. I think all of us are trying to get that message across."
They'll find out tonight how effective those efforts have been.
Though none of the three recycling efforts have been passed by Maryland's General Assembly, Commissioners President Jan Gardner hopes to make them the county's top priorities.
Aside from franchising districts, the county also hopes to adopt a deposit program on recyclable bottles that would allow consumers to return them for a small payment. Similar programs are already in effect in other states. The county has also proposed a container excise tax on beverage containers that are not recyclable.
The commissioners consider these solid waste initiatives important because they are running out of solutions, Gray said.
The landfill is running out of space and the county is shipping trash out of the county at the cost of a million dollars a month, he said.
"We can't close our eyes and keep shipping it to some hole in Virginia that may vanish next month, next year," Gray said. "Basically, it's very hard to ignore."
Commissioner John L. Thompson Jr. originally proposed the measures, and said they are the only way the county can increase recycling enough to prevent it from having to build a waste-to-energy plant.
"In order to divert enough trash from the waste stream into recycling to have any hope of avoiding the need for a WTE facility, we will need to change the way we do business," Thompson said. "However, that will be difficult."
All three initiatives will increase recycling, but Gardner said her top priority is solid waste franchising because it will pave the way for curbside recycling across the county.
Gardner said the county already has the authority to put out a single, county-wide bid for all trash hauling in the unincorporated parts of the county. But the commissioners would rather divide the county into small districts, allowing more haulers to remain in the county and giving them more efficient areas to cover.
The county would choose haulers for each district based on the price of their bid and other terms included in it.
The franchise agreement could also include components the county wants, like universal curbside recycling. The recycling could also be single stream, a system of recycling that allows haulers to bring all the recyclables in one truck to the processing station without separating them first.
"It should reduce the cost to the consumer, allow for a more efficient collection process and expand recycling county wide," Gardner said.
The county officials acknowledge they still have more outreach to do, however.
Mike Marschner is the director of the Utilities and Solid Waste Management Division. He said he plans to work with the county's Solid Waste Advisory Committee on public outreach, both to haulers and citizens.
Condon, who lives outside of Wolfsville in the unincorporated part of the county, is still opposed to it. He first learned about the issue by checking county government agendas and documents, and didn't like the proposal because he felt it would create government monopolies.
"Right now, I have a choice if I want to get my trash picked up once a week, twice a week, every day," Condon said. "My costs are based on what I want to get disposed of rather than some overall blanket, one-size-fits-all service."
He said the commissioners say the new system will be better for haulers and better for consumers, but that creates a disconnect in his mind.
"If it's cheaper to the people, then the revenue to the haulers is less, so it can't be both ways," he said.
County officials say the districts benefit haulers by giving them a steady source of revenue for several years, allowing them to go to the bank and get better loans.
But Marschner said some smaller haulers could still be absorbed into the larger firms, depending on how many districts the county decides to establish. The county has roughly 22 to 24 haulers with active routes, he said, and it's unlikely they would have that many districts.
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