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By BRETT WILKISON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Sonoma County residents will pay more to get rid of their junk starting this week because even the trash business is in the dumps these days.
The county is seeking to recoup more than a million dollars in ongoing losses from its garbage and recycling operations by raising the waste drop-off fees for residential customers and commercial haulers by about 6.5 percent.
The new rates approved by the Board of Supervisors will take effect Thursday <NO1>July 1 <NO>at the central landfill on Meacham Road and four other trash transfer stations in Healdsburg, Sonoma, Guerneville and Annapolis.
The charge for residential customers will go from $101.50 per ton to $108 per ton. For commercial haulers, the fee will rise from $100.50 per ton to $107 per ton.
The increase follows a 9.5 percent hike in dump fees last year.
Counnt officials said the higher fees are needed to compensate for a two-year, 26 percent decline in revenue caused by less garbage coming into county transfer stations.
The recession is partly to blame, they said. Reduced consumer spending has led to less waste arriving at the transfer stations.
Recycling and other reuse efforts also divert an increasing amount of the county’s waste — 66 percent and climbing — away from the transfer stations.
Both trends mean millions less for the county coffers.
“The better we do at recycling, the less revenue we have to support recycling and other programs,” said Susan Klassen, deputy director of Sonoma County’s Transportation and Public Works Department, which oversees waste operations. “It’s what they call the death spiral.”
Even with the higher fees, which are expected to generate an additional $1.3 million, the county estimates it will lose $2.6 million from waste operations over the next fiscal year.
Discussions are underway on how to retool the way the county charges for waste disposal, possibly factoring in recyclables and green waste, which currently don’t generate revenue.
A shift in that pricing strategy, which would have “negligible effects” on household bills, is likely more than a year away, county officials said.
In the interim, the county’s Integrated Waste Division has cut staff and streamlined operations to reduce costs. Last year, the county also decided to close all transfer stations on Sunday and close the Guerneville and Annapolis sites on an additional weekday.
Without another fee hike, further reductions in station hours might be necessary, said Supervisor Efren Carrillo.
“It’s definitely not the best time for raising fees,” Carrillo acknowledged, “but my hope is this will help us maintain services.”
The approximately $32 million brought in this fiscal year from drop-off fees also pays for oversight of seven closed landfills and the still-shuttered central landfill, recycling, yard waste and toxic waste programs, plus transport and disposal of waste outside of the county.
Officials were considering another 9.5 percent hike in both residential and commercial drop-off fees this year. Those plans were scaled back after the savings from a recently approved contract for hauling garbage outside of the county.
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Our supervisors are much too busy objecting to Arizona’s illegal immigration law to bother with trivialities like this.