DATE: Tuesday, October 7, 1997              TAG: 9710070301

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY                    LENGTH:   72 lines

TRASH FEE PROTESTS PROMPT OFFICIALS TO EXPLORE OPTIONS FLAT YEARLY FEE OF $95 CALLED INEQUITABLE; RESIDENTS WANT COST TIED TO TRASH VOLUME.

Pasquotank County Commissioners, deluged with complaints about the $95 trash disposal fee, are seeking a better way.

``This is the most difficult thing we've ever imposed,'' Commissioner Patsy McGee said during Monday's board meeting. ``I hope something different can be done next year - something a lot more popular.''

After searching for months for the best way to pay for trash disposal, commissioners voted in June to charge a flat annual fee of $95 per household. The projected revenues of $864,000 were to be used to help pay for $1.3 million in school construction and renovation debt.

Complaints immediately poured in and haven't stopped since the fee became law.

``I visited a church this weekend and I almost got attacked over that issue,'' Commissioner Una Green said.

Single people who generate relatively little trash would have to pay as much as a family of 10. Owners of unoccupied homes get the same charge unless they apply for an exemption. County commissioners will forgive the fee for homes that are uninhabitable or for residents who may be in a nursing home for at least a year.

Most residents want to pay according to the amount of trash produced.

``We chose the best method we had with the information available to us at budget time,'' McGee said. ``I hope by next year we can come up with something better.''

McGee said most residents would not have complained as much if the county had been able to spread the charge in small payments over a year. But three different water systems and two sewer systems serve county residents, making billing complicated.

Some residents have insisted that their taxes should already cover waste disposal.

Solid waste disposal is very expensive, McGee counters.

``It's mandated to us, and we have to abide by it,'' she said.

The county is not going far enough by just separating recyclable items, said county extension agent Tom Campbell. Separating biodegradable trash, such as paper or kitchen scraps, could save the county from a third to half of the trash weight, he said.

The county currently pays Waste Industries Inc. $1.6 million a year to haul Pasquotank County garbage to a landfill in Bertie County and operate the recycling centers.

``It's probably one of the simplest things they could do,'' Campbell said. ``You can compost anything that was once living or anything made of something that was once living.''

Campbell said it would require buying shredding and composting equipment, but it would be worth it. The county could charge about $24 for a pickup load of compost.

``It's working in other places,'' he said.

Walt Disney World composts 70 tons of its restaurant waste per day, he said. The compost goes into Disney greenhouses and landscaping beds.

The commissioners have considered other methods of trash collection, each with positive and negative points, said Commissioner Hugh Clinkscales, chairman of the board's solid waste disposal committee:

In the bag and tag program, residents are charged by the number of bags of garbage. The drawback is the expensive equipmentneeded to collect the garbage.

In some counties, residents buy an annual sticker. This system is the same as the unpopular annual fee.

Paying by weight with a door-to-door pickup also requires expensive equipment. Trucks would have to be rigged with scales.

The variable can method requires residents pay for trash but not for recyclables. The incentive is to recycle as much as possible. This method may reduce revenues too low to cover costs, but it may be the most popular.

``This is going to be a bookkeeping nightmare until we get straight what we're going to do,'' Clinkscales said.

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