Once again, I am talking to everyone about trash service. I hate to have to do this since it seems to be an ongoing sensitive issue with a few people. So why stir the pot. Well, the city is taking enforcement actions and I wanted to explain why in advance.
City Ordinance 2024-016 states that every address in Holiday Island that has a HISID water meter must be signed up for trash service. The assumption being that if a residence is occupied and using water, they are creating trash which must be disposed of in a legal manner. There are exceptions in the ordinance. But in general, it’s everyone. We have about 1500 residential water meters installed in Holiday Island and the vast majority of people have signed up. However, there are about 145 that have not and this number seems to be slowly creeping up as more and more people feel they can get away without paying for service. Starting in April, those addresses will be billed at the standard 2-bag rate. This billing process is similar to most cities that put a sanitation fee on the water bill to cover trash service. If they fail to pay the bill, we will investigate and if necessary, issue a citation that will require them to appear in District Court which may result in fines and penalties. We are taking this action for a couple of reason.
Illegal Dumping:
People are doing something with their trash. If CCSW isn’t taking it, they may be putting it with someone else’s trash, putting it in someone’s dumpster, or worst case creating their own dump site in Holiday Island which we have seen. Your tax dollars are then eventually used to clean up that illegal dump.
Cost Shifting:
The cost for CCSW to drive the 70 miles of Holiday Island roads to pick up garbage is basically fixed. Whether they stop at your house or not, it costs them to drive by. Garbage trucks cost about $300,000 and last maybe five years. They are machines and machines require maintenance. Drivers require a CDL license and can get $20/hr. plus benefits any day of the week. The 2nd man in the crew will get about $18.00/hour plus benefits. The trucks get about 5 miles to the gallon of fuel. Holiday Island is 21 miles from the Berryville transfer station and since both the Wednesday and Thursday routes are more than one truckload, they have to make at least two round trips to Berryville each day. Add to that the recycling route trucks and drivers and the cardboard recycling. There are costs to operate the transfer center in Berryville where trash is consolidated and loaded on trucks to transport to the landfill. And there are significant landfill dumping fees.
CCSW is a nonprofit solid waste district. The rates they set cover their costs plus 35% which is set back for equipment replacement. The rate for the basic two bag service (no cart) is $19.75 a month. Every month there is about $2800 in revenue not collected by CCSW from the 145 or so residences not signed up. But their costs don’t go down $2800. So, the paying customers get charged $1.80 to $2.00 a month to cover it. It gets built into your rate. The problem would be the same for any company that would service Holiday Island. In order to be fair to everyone, we need to make sure everyone is participating.
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