Agency Backs Off on Trash Hauler Fee Hikes

Orange County’s Waste Management Commission on Thursday reversed a recent recommendation for increasing the dumping fee for county trash haulers and appointed a committee to look into ways of keeping the fee at current levels.

By a 12-2 vote, the agency that manages county landfills rescinded last month’s recommendation that the Board of Supervisors increase haulers’ gate fees from $22.75 to $27.66 per ton of trash brought to the landfill, beginning July 1.

The increase would have boosted all county residents’ trash collection fees one dollar per month. Residents typically pay between $9 and $15 monthly for trash pickup.

In a report prepared shortly after last month’s 8-7 vote in favor of raising the dumping fees, commissioners who voted against the hike listed four “high-expenditure” programs in which the commission could achieve savings, rather than pass costs on to residents.

The report was enough to sway the opinions of many who had previously voted for the fee hike, they said.

Commission member Larry Nelson blasted County Waste Management Director Murry Cable--who had initially voted for the fee hike--for changing his stance on the issue.

“I voted for the increase because you supported it,” Nelson told Cable. “My confidence in the staff is greatly shaken. I still think an increase is in order.

“Now, we’re basically saying that everything we believed in back then was wrong,” Nelson said.

But Cable said the committee’s initial decision was made without scrutinizing the alternatives to raising fees thoroughly.

“We thought that we had a time limitation to make our decision, so some things were not looked into as closely as they should have been,” he said.

The costs 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, officials have said.

An independent report by Hilton, Farnkopf & Hobson, a Newport Beach consulting company, stated that to keep pace, the agency must charge more to handle the refuse coming into its landfills.

The commission on Thursday selected a five-member committee that will look into ways to reduce operating and capital costs, targeting the four high-expenditure programs.

Most of those programs are federally mandated regulatory requirements, which will make it difficult for the commission to cut back those programs, officials said.