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Thursday, 15 October 2009 |
By WILLIAM LANEY
Managing Editor
The inclusion of a parcel fee to fund landfill monitoring and a recycling program that loses money each year may threaten passage of Auglaize County’s Solid Waste District’s 15-year policy update.
During a hearing Wednesday, the consultant for the county Solid Waste District explained without the plan’s ratification that Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials enter the process.
During a public hearing on the policy update, Solid Waste Consultant Mary Wiard said if the plan is not acceptable for any reason to councilors and trustees representing 75 percent of the district’s population then EPA officials may write the plan for the Solid Waste District.
“If the plan is not approved, the EPA would come in and write the plan for the district, and when the state of Ohio EPA writes the plan they only consider meeting all of the requirements of the plan — they do not consider how the district will pay for it,” said Wiard, who works for Waste Alternatives, of Mount Vernon. “They would require the district to impose fees to pay for their plan.
“In general I think it would be better to approve and to use this plan then the one they might impose on the district,” she said.
For the plan to be forwarded to the EPA for final acceptance, the plan must be ratified by the Auglaize County Commissioners and Wapakoneta City Council members because it is the largest city in the district. It also requires councilors and township trustees representing at least 75 percent of the county’s population approve of the plan. EPA officials have already approved the plan.
In a meeting after the hearing, members of the Auglaize County Solid Waste District Planning Committee approved the policy update. Legislation must now be approved by the commissioners and councilors in the cities of St. Marys and Wapakoneta and the county’s villages as well as township trustees.
Two St. Marys City Council members inquired about the parcel fee and the viability of the recycling program so that they could better explain the fee and the program to their constituents.
St. Marys 2nd Ward Councilor Dennis Vossler questioned the implementation of the parcel fee, which is being used to pay for landfill monitoring at the St. Marys Landfill and to pay the county General Fund for court costs and past landfill monitoring costs.
Vossler said he believed past solid waste plans included money to pay for landfill monitoring, which is aimed at testing water from the landfill entering the St. Marys River. The annual costs for landfill monitoring is approximately $110,000.
Commissioner Doug Spencer tried to explain the money generated by a fee on refuse is used by the district to fund some refuse collection programs and recycling programs throughout the county as well as to meet EPA requirements. He explained the last plan, ratified in 2003, did not include money for the landfill monitoring program.
“In the last plan, there was no money and no line item in the budget to pay for landfill monitoring — this was during a time period of litigation,” Spencer said after the hearing and meeting. “I did not serve as a commissioner when this was ratified but the board of commissioners must have felt it was not their responsibility to pay for the monitoring, hence there was no funding set aside for this.”
The $20 parcel fee, which appeared on property owners’ taxes, is to be used to pay future landfill monitoring costs and pay back $2 million to the General Fund, which paid the city of St. Marys for legal fees and past landfill monitoring costs.
Spencer explained the $20 parcel fee is an annual fee. While it appeared on July statements, it will appear on February property taxes in 2010 and thereafter. It will not appear on property taxes in July 2010. St. Marys Councilor-at-large James Harris challenged the viability of the county recycling program noting “recycling is not a money maker for us” and questioning if the county or city should eliminate recycling because “we are trying to save money here.”
Spencer defended the program.
“In my mind, I am 100 percent behind recycling, and yes there is a cost associated with it but there is a cost associated with everything we do,” Spencer told the Wapakoneta Daily News. “I think it is our job to take care of the Earth, and it is a simple thing that we can do — to recycle.
“I think we have to live by the ancient adage — ‘We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children,’” he said.
Spencer also talked about the reality of the EPA guidelines regarding recycling which requires recycling be available to 90 percent of the district’s population and that recycled waste reduces the waste going into landfills.
“If the recycling component is not in the plan then the EPA may step in say how are you going to rectify this in regard to recycling or they may say this is how you are going to rectify this,” Spencer said. “They may even say this is the plan you are going to use, now find a way to fund it.”
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Last Updated ( Friday, 16 October 2009 )
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