Report Urges Hike in Garbage Collection Fees

The agency that manages Orange County’s landfills faces a bleak future unless residents pay $1 more each month for garbage collection by the end of the year, and $4 more each month by 1998, according to a new report.

Without the increases, the Orange County Integrated Waste Management Department would lose money each of the next four years, with losses hitting about $87,000 by 1998, the independent report says.

“Obviously, you can’t run a department like that,” said Robert Hilton, whose Newport Beach consulting company spent 15 months preparing the report for the county.

Should county officials decide to raise landfill fees, the cost would be passed on to residents through utility bills and charges from the various companies that haul trash in the county. Residents typically pay about $9 to $15 each month for trash pickup service, officials said.

The cost of meeting increasingly stringent environmental regulations, the success of recycling efforts and a sluggish economy have combined to cut into the agency’s cash reserves and the volume of waste going into landfills.

To keep pace, the agency must charge more to handle the refuse coming its way, according to the report by Hilton, Farnkopf & Hobson.

Murry Cable, the county’s waste management director, said he will support the report’s recommendations.

“We simply can’t continue to do what we’re doing without raising the fee,” Cable said. “I think (the report) shows clearly what the situation is. The facts are there.”

Members of the Waste Management Commission reviewed the report Thursday, but no action was taken. The commission will consider any fee changes at its March 24 meeting.

Should the commission approve a fee hike, the matter would go to the Board of Supervisors in April for a final decision. A vote by the board to increase the charge would mean the rate could go into effect this summer.

The report recommends the agency this year raise its gate fee, the charge that trash haulers pay for landfill admission, from $22.75 per ton to $27.66.

The report goes on to suggest an annual $5 hike in the rate each of the next three years, a proposal that would be considered by the commission on a year-by-year basis.

Hilton said the Orange County waste management agency is feeling the same pressures that have caused counterparts statewide to charge trash haulers more.

The amount of waste entering Orange County landfills has dropped 23% since 1989, partly because of successful curb-side recycling campaigns and the slump in the construction industry.

In 1991, an official of Orange County’s Integrated Waste Management Commission proposed that it invite a limited number of Los Angeles haulers to dump about 2,500 tons of garbage each day in county landfills. Last year, the commission voted to solicit bids from Los Angeles and San Diego to use Orange County landfills as a way of offsetting the cost of operating the landfills. But no significant bids were received.

An increasingly dense thicket of state and federal regulations also pose problems for the agency. Cable said regulations requiring new landfill lining, more monitoring systems and other improvements will cost the agency $38 million over the next five years.

“I think everyone agrees that there are too many new regulations,” said Cable, who added that even the most environmentally minded members of his staff are against the barrage of rules. “The federal government has gone overboard.”

At $22.75, Orange County’s current gate fees are lower than nearby counties, such as Riverside ($34.50), San Bernardino ($34.50) and San Diego ($43). Sanitation districts in Los Angeles County, which operates larger landfills with multiple sources of income that other counties do not have, have the lowest fees, ranging from $15.94 to $23.22.