Community Waste Solutions is the only licensed trash disposal business in Haines. (Emily Files)
The Haines Borough could save upwards of $20,000 per year if it disposes of its garbage in Washington state instead of in town. At an assembly meeting Tuesday, discussion over that idea highlighted uncertainty about the future of the town’s current solid waste system.
Right now, the borough does what many residents do — self-haul garbage to the privately-run Community Waste Solutions. At a cost of 27 cents per pound, the borough paid about $39,000 for solid waste disposal in 2016. That’s according to Interim Borough Manager Brad Ryan.
“We think that we could easily cut our trash bill by half,” Ryan told the assembly.
His idea is for the borough to buy containers and set up a transfer station where garbage would be stored until the containers are ready for shipment.
A few times each year, the borough would ship the trash-filled containers to a disposal company in Washington state. Ryan says the company charges only eight cents per pound, so the borough would save about $25,000 per year. The up-front costs are about $21,000.
But it wasn’t just a simple question of cost savings for the assembly.
“This is kind of a further fragmentation of some kind of comprehensive approach for the community,” said Assemblyman Tom Morphet.
Morphet was hesitant for two reasons. One, the borough is a big customer for Community Waste Solutions. He wondered if the municipality taking its business elsewhere would impact rates for other people.
He was also worried about this plan disrupting the efforts of the recently-formed solid waste working group.
“I understand that there’s a lot of political momentum pushing for us to comprehensively deal with our garbage on a community-wide basis,” Morphet said.
Assembly members Heather Lende and Ron Jackson were also wary of Ryan’s proposal.
But Assembly member Margaret Friedenauer, who is the chair of the solid waste group, was not.
“I’m not sure that the solid waste working group is going to come up with a comprehensive approach to recommend immediately or soon even,” Friedenauer said. “It’s taking a lot of work and a lot of discussion.”
She said in the meantime, this is a responsible decision for the borough. Friedenauer said it also offers an emergency back-up for the community if something went wrong with the sole solid waste business in town.
“What’s our contingency as a community?” Friedenauer asked. “If the private company that handles our solid waste were to close tomorrow, if the RCA or DEC shuts them down? There’s a whole lot that can go wrong with one private entity handling a community issue like this.”
Community Waste Solutions became the only trash disposal facility in Haines last year, when competitor Acme Transfer closed. The Regulatory Commission of Alaska has been reviewing the transfer of Acme’s license to CWS. During the review, the RCA found that CWS’s rates are not regulated by either the state or the municipality. Apparently the lack of oversight happened after consolidation, because the old city of Haines used to have rate regulation authority.
In a letter to the borough, a judge with the regulatory commission says with the license transfer, CWS ‘would become an unregulated monopoly provider’ of garbage service, unless the state or municipality takes over rate regulation. The RCA is asking for the borough’s comments on the matter by March 2. The assembly may make that decision at its next meeting Feb. 28.
The assembly also held off on making a decision about Ryan’s proposal to cut costs by shipping refuse out of town. They referred the idea to the solid waste working group for comment.
The working group meets next Thursday at 4 p.m. at the library.
Solid Waste Alaska Taskforce (SWAT)
Get with these folks who are cleaning up other areas of Alaska with state and fed funds
Why not create a new landfill run by the city? There are places in the valley where this could be done without damage to the environment near the landfill. We could still ship out toxic wastes. And why not have an incinerator as Skegway does? I think CWS charges way too much for trash. I mean 27 cents a pound! Shipping all our trash out might be the answer. But it would sure help if the city found a cheap way for low income to get rid of trash. One last thing; we need a city run wrecking yard. The price of scrap steel is low but it will indeed go back up. So if the city took cars and trucks for $100 or less and then stockpiled those autos until the price of scrap steel went up there could be a nice cash income from that that would help pay for the wrecking yard. And if it was run as most wrecking yards they could sell auto parts and make a huge income that would support the overhead of running it. People need to think outside the box. As it is we have a trash monopoly(CWS) taking us to the cleaners. And the city talks and talks for decades about this and nothing gets done!
I appreciate thoughtful discussion on this. In addition to loss of support for a business (buy local?), it appears this may cost the borough (hidden) dollars to save pennies. Where will the containers sit- and what will this cost in rent, aesthetics or lost opportunity for the land? Who will monitor to ensure couches don’t get dumped, or birds don’t spread tasty treats everywhere? How much will the borough spend in employee time to maneuver, monitor, keep the area tidy, repair equipment used for this operation, etc.? If CWS shuts down, wouldn’t that create an immediate compelling business opportunity that wouldn’t be left unfulfilled for very long? I’m glad there’s a committee focus on the issue.
If the borough was to try to ship their own garbage they would create a situation that would cause a rate increase that would cause people to stop taking their garbage to the dump and you would see more garbage in the river and in the woods.I also wonder where Mr Ryan is going to put the solid waste from the sewer treatment plant.Another scenario that could play out here is the dump could shut down because of the loss of revenue and then the community would have no dump.This is truly a very bad idea.