ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 17, 1996 TAG: 9610170038
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
As he stood before the All-America City awards jury in Fort Worth, Texas, back in June, City Manager Bob Herbert trumpeted the Roanoke Valley Trash Transfer Station and Smith Gap Landfill as gleaming examples of regional cooperation that would meet the valley's trash disposal needs for the next 60 years.
Today, it's apparent what a difference a few months make.
The landfill, trash transfer station and the costs of operating them are at the center of a struggle in Roanoke, Roanoke County and Vinton over where trash will go, who will collect it, and how much they'll pay:
* Browning Ferris Industries, a private hauler, is taking trash picked up from local businesses out of the state to be dumped. Other haulers may do the same, threatening tip fee revenues that are to be used to pay off the $44 million taxpayers borrowed to build the landfill and transfer station.
* The Roanoke Valley Resource Authority is fighting back, seeking permission from its three owners - the governments of Roanoke, Roanoke County and Vinton - to get into residential and commercial trash collection. Key city, county, and resource authority officials say it may be the only way to keep paying for the landfill and transfer station without raising taxes.
* Local commercial trash haulers such as BFI and Waste Management are running a public relations and lobbying blitz against the idea, saying it would be unfair and expensive for taxpayers to subsidize competition against them.
* At a cost of $8,000, the resource authority last month hired a public relations and marketing firm to figure out how to sell collection service to commercial customers - although it doesn't yet have approval from the jurisdictions to collect commercial trash.
* On Sept. 16, Roanoke City Council shot down a charter change the authority needs if it's ever to do any trash collecting. On Oct. 7, council voted to reconsider its earlier vote, and the issue may be on its agenda again next Wednesday.
* And on Wednesday, the Virginia Waste Industries Association called a news conference to urge City Council not to reverse its original vote. Somewhat ironically, the location was downtown's Patrick Henry Hotel, which has struggled ever since the city and state governments pumped at least $37 million into re-opening its competitor, the Hotel Roanoke.
"The Virginia Waste Industries Council encourages the Roanoke City Council not to reverse the position, which it took on Sept. 16, [rejecting] this proposal from the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority," said J. Victor Arthur III, chapter manager of the association.
"In short, we strongly believe that local governing bodies should not authorize the authority to use public funds to compete with the private sector," he said.
The trash haulers say the authority has an unfair competitive advantage against them.
It would use public dollars to get into the business of collecting trash. Because it pays no taxes, as the haulers do, and may borrow funds more cheaply, the authority could undercut private haulers' prices and drive them out of the local market.
If they're out of business, the region will lose jobs, and the governments will lose the real estate, personal property and business license taxes the companies now pay.
If private haulers left the market, the authority would be a monopoly, Arthur said, and there wouldn't be competitive pressures, which keep prices down.
And "nobody has suggested that the private [haulers] within this very competitive marketplace are not providing very good service," said H. Benson Dendy III, a Richmond lobbyist who represents the waste haulers association.
Local officials counter that the trash haulers are crying "wolf."
"It's almost like private haulers are trying to keep this from even getting out of the chute. And I don't know why," said Kit Kiser, Roanoke's director of utilities and operations.
Roanoke City Manager Bob Herbert this summer raised the specter of declining landfill revenues because of haulers taking commercial trash elsewhere and the pressure that would put on local governments to pay off loans on the landfill and transfer station.
But now he says he's more interested in the ability of the three governments to regionalize the residential collection systems they each operate as a means of saving money. The three jurisdictions collect a small amount of commercial waste - from downtown businesses, for instance.
"It's a grand leap to assume that the resource authority might want to get into the commercial business the private haulers are now providing." Herbert said. "There's a big barrier that must be crossed to satisfy any of the three government bodies that that's necessary."
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