Commission hikes transfer station gate fee to $76 per ton
By Andy Hallman Daily Freeman-Journal Staff WriterAt its Wednesday meeting, the Hamilton County Solid Waste Commission voted to raise the gate fee at the transfer station from $52 per ton to $76 per ton. The city assessment will remain at $11 per person. The rate increase will go into effect Feb. 1.
The vote was a unanimous decision 8-0 in favor of raising the gate fee. Casting the yes votes were Wes Sweedler (County Board), Troy Hassebrock (Blairsburg), Dale Graham (Ellsworth), Lendall Mechaelsen (Kamrar), Gregg Wright (Randall), Ronnie McKenzie (Stanhope), Mike Nepereny (Stratford) and Roy Ronnfeldt (Williams).
Two commission members were absent and they were Mickey Walker of Jewell and Eugene Gray of Webster City.
The rate increase at the transfer station is being done in response to a rate increase at the North Central Iowa Regional Solid Waste Plant in Fort Dodge. On Oct. 22, the solid waste plant in Fort Dodge voted to raise its gate fee from $5 per cubic yard to $8.50 per cubic yard beginning Jan. 1.
Because all of the garbage in Hamilton County is now taken to Fort Dodge, a rate increase in Fort Dodge will eventually be passed on to Hamilton County residents.
Commission Secretary Lori Isvik informed the commission members that if the transfer station kept its fees at $52 per ton, it would lose about $25,000 a month after Jan. 1.
The commission debated the possibility of making up that $25,000 by increasing the assessment that the transfer station charges to each town. Sweedler stated he was against increasing the assessment.
"If we increase the assessment, it means some people will be paying for other people's garbage. Why do you want to hide the true cost of trash removal in an assessment? You're lying to the people about the cost of their garbage," said Sweedler.
Graham warned against raising the gate fee too much.
"If we raise our gate fee to $72 or $76, you're going to see more garbage show up in the ditch," said Graham.
Wright disagreed, stating, "I think people are going to throw their garbage in the ditch regardless of the rates."
Mechaelsen commented that the reason for Fort Dodge's increased rates had to do with environment regulations being imposed by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
"The DNR regulations are causing this rate increase, so the people have to know that this is out of our hands. If people want to change the regulations they need to do it on election day," said Mechaelsen.
Graham remarked that casting the commission in a positive light was not his chief concern.
"Why worry about being the good guy? It's time for us to stop being such good guys. If this is what it's going to take to pay for our garbage, that's what we have to charge," said Graham.
Transfer station manager Terry Klaver remarked that most people in town are surprised at how inexpensive garbage is.
"Ninety-five percent of the people I've talked to are amazed at how cheap the garbage is," said Klaver.
Nepereny had doubts about whether or not everyone in the county would still take the garbage to the transfer station after the rate increase.
"How can we ensure that everyone in Hamilton County will bring their garbage out here? Can we shame it into them?" asked Graham.
Sweedler responded, "We don't have enough garbage police to guarantee 100 percent compliance. You're never going to get everyone to come to this transfer station."
After the vote was taken, Wright asked if there was a way to avoid this kind of sharp rate increase in the future.
"Can we raise it a little bit each year so we don't have this same situation every 10 years?" questioned White.
Sweedler did not like the idea, saying, "I hate to put in an automatic increase every year when we don't know what Fort Dodge is going to do."
Household Waste
In other news, the commission discussed the grant application it's applying for to build a Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center. The commission is applying for a $100,000 grant from the DNR to pay for the project.
Hassebrock said that the application is in the process of being filled out, and that the engineer is charging $40 an hour to fill it out.
"I don't have the time to fill out this application," explained Hassebrock.
Some members asked Hassebrock if Secretary Isvik could fill out the application instead, which would cut costs.
"I'll check to see if we can save some money by having Lori fill out parts of the application instead of the engineer," said Hassebrock.
Broken endloader
The commission also debated what to do about the endloader that recently broke down. The commission was planning on trading in the endloader for a new one.
"Before we decide to fix the endloader, we have to know how much the repair costs will be," said Hassebrock.
"We were expecting to receive between $35,000 and $40,000 worth of credit for a new machine when we traded in our old one, but that was when the endloader was in working condition," said Klaver.
The commission elected to wait until the repair costs are known before they decide whether or not to fix the endloader. In the meantime, the transfer station is renting an endloader for $2,000 a week.
Pre-pay discount on buy-in
The commission learned that the solid waste plant in Fort Dodge accepted the commission's pre-payment for the cost of the buy-in. When the Hamilton County transfer station started taking garbage to Fort Dodge, the Fort Dodge landfill charged transfer station a buy-in fee of $1.47 million to make room for the new garbage. That fee is being spread out over a 15-year period with payments of $98,000 a year.
Because the commission is paying its bill early, the total bill will be reduced by $60,000.
