A Decision needs to be made!
In 1994 the residents of Coos County were faced with a dilemma: shut down the incinerators at the Beaver Hill disposal site and possibly turn it into a transfer site or make a substantial investment and upgrade the facility to meet new environmental standards. In little more than a year from the time that the residents of Coos County first began being informed of the need to act, the federal government was going to implement significant changes in the requirements for incinerating garbage. This meant that a decision about what to do with the Beaver Hill disposal site would need to be made and made soon.
The options that were discussed back then were: (1) make the necessary changes to the facility to comply with the new regulations and continue to operate the incinerators; (2) Shut down the incinerators and operate the facility as a transfer site from which garbage would be hauled to another county or possibly even another state or; (3) close the facility completely and contract the removal of solid waste from the county.
A great deal of research was done on all the options. An engineer, William Wright, was retained, and public meetings were held. The information that was gathered showed that the cost of garbage collection would not go down, and could actually increase significantly depending on how it was classified. For instance, if considered hazardous, it could cost $700 a ton to ship to a landfill and regardless what direction the county decided to go they were still going to have to deal with the disposal of garbage and monitoring of the closed sites for 30 years. Les Golbeck, then owner of Les’ sanitation, was a supporter of keeping the site open, and asking residents to support a bond, saying that for him to haul garbage to a landfill would increase costs to his customers more than a tax increase. Skip Sumstine, then director of solid waste wrote, “If the Beaver Hill site is closed the EPA and ODEQ will never allow another solid waste site in Coos County again”.
Ultimately the decision was made to ask the residents of Coos County to support a general obligation bond. The bond would be for seven million dollars secured by a 15 year property tax levy. The money would fund the opening of a new ash trench, purchase and installment of the required emissions scrubbing system, and a new 50 ton per day incinerator. The primary argument against funding the upgrade of the Beaver Hill plant back in 1994 was that the bond would take 15 years to repay and the plant may only last for 5 years. Voters saw the value in upgrading and keeping the facility open and passed a measure that resulted in a final cost to tax payers of approximately 23 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.
This year, 2009, that bond was paid off and the plant is still fully operational. The problems we are facing today are that the current ash trench is getting critically full, and although the facility is still fully operational, it is in need of some repair and refurbishment that cannot be done by the employees at the facility. The Beaver Hill facility currently operates on a budget of a little more than two million dollars per year. While this allows us to meet our obligations there is very little in the budget for maintenance and repairs.
The Coos County commissioners recently held a work session to discuss options for the Beaver Hill facility. The options discussed were the same as those in 1994; make the necessary improvements, turn the facility into a transfer site, or close the facility and get completely out of the garbage business. In 1994 Les Golbeck believed as I do now that it was in the best interest of the county to maintain control of, and operate, the facility as it is currently being operated.
Coos County is responsible for the closure and monitoring costs of the two open sites, Beaver Hill and Joe Ney, and the one closed site, Bandon, that are estimated to cost more than $9,000,000 over the next 30 years. The county currently has only about $2,500,000 set aside to cover those costs. This means that if the decision was made to shut down the incinerators, cover the ash trench, and turn the site into a transfer station, or close it completely, there would be an average yearly cost of $300,000 that would more than likely be passed on to the tax payers in the form of increased taxes or decreased services. Additionally we are seeing an increase in the amount of illegal dumping throughout the county. The economic downturn has forced many people to make painful cost cutting decisions, and a growing number of people are choosing to dump illegally rather than pay for garbage service. The cost of cleaning up these dumping sites will also be bourn by the tax payer, and with the recent dismissal of more than 20 employees at the road department, the work will more than likely need to be contracted out. If we shut down the incinerators we will have virtually no control of the cost of sanitation service, and the fact that the closest land fill is 120 miles away, that cost could skyrocket.
I strongly believe, as did a majority of Coos County residents in 1994, that our best option is to continue to keep the Beaver Hill incinerators operating, therefore, I have prepared three proposals that would allow us to do that. The first would use general funds or funds that are currently set aside to cover final closure costs. The second would require the passing of a bond measure like the one passed in 1994 but the cost per $1,000 of assessed property value would be less than it was in 1994. The third would require a larger tax on assessed property values but would not require a bond, would provide an up front operating budget at least equivalent to our current yearly budget, and would allow Coos County residents to dump at the Beaver Hill site for free.
Please review these proposals and let your commisioners, or me, know what you would like to see happen with the BHDS.
fmesserle@co.coos.or.us cparry@co.coos.or.us bmain@co.coos.or.us ourcountysite@charter.net
