Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 5, 1994 TAG: 9401050044
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Roanoke knew that its landfill dumping costs would increase by about $1.5 million a year to pay for a new landfill and trash train.
The dumping fees have been increased from $20 to $50 a ton to finance the $42 million trash disposal system.
What city officials did not expect was a proposed $10-a-ton state surcharge on trash buried in a landfill or burned in an incinerator.
City Manager Bob Herbert said there is a little-noticed provision in Gov. Douglas Wilder's proposed budget that would impose the fee.
Roanoke generates about 50,000 tons of trash a year. The $10 fee would translate into an additional $500,000.
Salem, Roanoke County and other localities apparently would face similar increases.
Officials with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality were not available Tuesday to comment on the proposed fee.
The Virginia Municipal League has sent a legislative advisory to cities about the proposal.
"This not the way to help local governments," Herbert told the city's General Assembly representatives at a discussion of the city's legislative requests.
"These are the kinds of things which kill us," Herbert said.
Del. Victor Thomas, D-Roanoke, said he will check out the proposed fee, adding that he hadn't heard about it.
Herbert said the proposed fee comes at a time when the city is trying to meet the state's mandate to recycle 25 percent of its trash.
"We are struggling to get the trucks and manpower for recycling, and now we are faced with this," Herbert said.
Herbert said the city also faces the possible loss of nearly $500,000 in state funds for police and constitutional officers.
A state-mandated compromise on the annexation ban for cities provided additional funds for cities for police services, but the state has been reducing the funds in the past three years, Herbert said.
Beginning in 1995, the state plans to stop paying for fringe benefits for the sheriff, treasurer and other constitutional officers, he said.
by CNB