Solid waste user fees likely soon

Strong objections from community

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — Beginning next year, nearly everyone who owns a building will likely start paying a solid waste fee to the county. In return, county residents and businesses will be able to dump their solid waste at a transfer station for no fee.

At a meeting on November 5, Sullivan County legislators voted seven to two in favor of moving a new solid waste user fee out of committee and sending it to a final vote by the board. Single family homes would be charged $182 per year, and the bills will come with the tax bills in January. The bills for businesses wouldn’t go out until May. This gives county officials time to figure out how to formulate bills for what county chairman Jonathan Rouis called “complicated parcels.”

There are some 60,000 parcels in Sullivan County, and about 40,000 of those have buildings on them. For the vast majority of those, the formula for working out the solid waste fee works fairly well, and the owners should end up paying a fee that is very close to what they now pay in landfill tipping fees. But for about 3,000 properties, which are mostly mixed use and, for instance, have apartments on the top floor and commercial space on the bottom floor, the formula will need to be adjusted. Rouis had proposed going over each of these complicated parcels on a case-by-case basis and making adjustments as needed.

However, some of the lawmakers think the entire program has not been given enough study. At the meeting, lawmaker Alan Sorensen said that he had done a survey of some businesses in his district and the projected amount of the fee would be three times as much as solid waste service is now costing them. Even though there will be an appeals process, Sorensen said the county should study the matter further before taking such a large step.

Most lawmakers, however, supported the plan because, without it, the county would have been facing a staggering property tax increase. The way the tipping fee operation works now, the revenue from the landfill will fall about $4.5 million dollars short of paying for the entire system for 2009. That amount of money must be transferred from the general fund to cover the expenses. With the fee plan in place, the entire cost of the solid waste operation will be covered, in large part because many residents and businesses who are now taking their solid waste out of the county will be obliged to pay into the system.

With the county facing a budget crisis and the real possibility of laying off up to 100 county workers, the majority of legislators consider the adoption of the fee as necessary to avoid a punishing property tax increase.

That position, however, did not sway many of the business people and local politicians that turned out to a public hearing on the matter after the morning meeting on November 5.

Outgoing Tusten supervisor Ben Johnson said many people in the western part of the county take their waste to Beach Lake, PA and will be burdened by the new fee system.

Another complaint brought up by several people was the problem of leakage, whereby, because there are no fees at the transfer stations, waste from outside the county would inevitably wind up in Sullivan County facilities.

Terri Ward, president and CEO of the Sullivan County Chamber of Commerce, said that the business community had not been invited to the table to give input.

Another drawback was mentioned by several people, including Callicoon supervisor Linda Babicz, and Janet Newburg, who as a member of the group Special Protection of the Environment for the County of Sullivan fought against the expansion of the landfill. Their complaint was that the institution of the fee system includes no new incentives for residents to recycle, and with zero tipping fees and no mandate for the use of clear plastic bags, recycling rates may actually decrease.

Rouis said that more aggressive recycling efforts would come later as the county beefs up its recycling facility. At this time, he said, the county currently does not have the capacity to move to a much more aggressive policy regarding the existing recycling laws.

Because of the numerous objections raised, a final vote was put off until November 12, when the board will address the issue again.

Transfer stations

According to county manager David Fanslau, all five transfer stations in the county will remain open. As part of the change, a new transfer station will be built at the site of the county landfill in Monticello. Until that is up and running, the transfer stations in Liberty and Mamakating will serve as departing points for long-haul exportation of municipal solid waste.