ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 27, 1997 TAG: 9702270071
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
Private trash haulers will get discounts in a plan to coax them back to the local landfill, but local governments will pay more to help make up the difference.
Officials with the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority - which operates the landfill for Roanoke, Roanoke County and the town of Vinton - said Tuesday they plan to offer discount rates to high-volume trash haulers that could save them up to $15 of the $55-per-ton fee.
The discounts are part of the authority's 1997-98 budget proposal and would go into effect July 1 if approved. The budget will be presented to the member localities by April 1, and the authority plans a public hearing May 28.
The authority is expecting a $1.5 million budget deficit this year because Browning Ferris Industries has diverted about three-quarters of the trash it picks up from business and industrial customers to a private landfill in Tennessee. BFI officials said they began hauling trash out of the region because the authority's fees are among the highest in the state.
John Hubbard, executive director of the authority, said the intent of the discounts is to attract that lost business. However, he said BFI officials have indicated they're not sure the discounts are enough. David Lance, who handles municipal market development in Virginia for BFI, said it's too early to say how the company will react.
The proposal wouldn't allow private haulers to immediately take the full $15 per ton discount. Instead, the discounts would operate on a sliding scale based on the number of tons each company has hauled for a given year. The cheapest rate of $40 per ton would not kick in until a company had hauled 30,000 tons to the authority's transfer station.
BFI hauled 40,800 tons to the local landfill last year. Because most of its trash is now going elsewhere, it is expected to bury only 10,800 tons at the landfill this year.
Once a company reached the $40 fee, it would be in effect only until the end of that fiscal year. At the start of the new year, all companies would be back at the $55 rate until they had again accumulated 30,000 tons.
Hubbard said BFI, Waste Management and Virginia Container Corp. were the only three landfill customers capable of reaching 30,000 tons in a year.
While private companies could pay less under the authority's budget proposal, local governments will pay more. Hubbard said the city, county and town already were scheduled for a $2 per ton increase in their fees, but that will now jump to $5 per ton. That amounts to $227,395 in new dollars for Roanoke, $165,540 for the county and $15,665 for Vinton.
Roanoke County spokeswoman Anne Marie Green said county officials view the proposal as an "interim solution," and hope to find an alternative in the future that is "fair to all customers."
The fee adjustments alone will not address the authority's revenue losses, Hubbard said.
The budget proposal leaves in place a hiring freeze, with two positions unfilled and a third expected by this summer. The authority also plans to reduce its annual contributions to reserve funds that are used to pay for new equipment and to prepare new sections of the landfill for use.
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