Oregon law states that counties are responsible for all waste generated by its citizens. This responsibility is commonly known as cradle-to-grave responsibility, meaning that Coos County is responsible for waste that originates here even if it is hauled to an out-of-county landfill such as Coffin Butte in Corvallis. Individual cities have the authority to negotiate with private commercial haulers for garbage services within their respective city limits but the ultimate responsibility for this waste still rests with the county.
At a meeting of the Solid Waste Advisory Committee in 2010, Bill Richardson, representative for Waste Connections, acknowledged that their contract with Coos County requires that all unincorporated garbage collected (meaning garbage from customers living outside city limits) be handled by Coos County Solid Waste facility. He also stated that 60% of their business is in unincorporated areas of the county. This contract was fairly harmonious for many years until 2010 when Waste Connections submitted a proposal take over the solid waste facility and operate it as a transfer station. The following is a record of tonnage totals compiled by fiscal year (FY) delivered to the Beaver Hill facility by Waste Connections for the last 10 years:
FY 01-02 23,552.74 FY 06-07 23,079.74
FY 02-03 24,266.15 FY 07-08 22,479.73
FY 03-04 23,880.46 FY 08-09 22,293.85
FY 04-05 23,427.60 FY 09-10 20,339.50
FY 05-06 23,825.40 FY 10-11 18,011.36This System Benefit Fee was adopted in 2000 by Commissioners in Lane County as a way to ensure that the county would not lose revenue that benefited the citizens of Lane County should haulers opt to take waste to facilities not operated by, or outside, the county. This possibility was presented as an option for Coos County in 2010 during public comments at the solid waste committee meetings as a way to ensure the Beaver Hill Disposal Site did not lose revenue should our commercial haulers start reducing the volume of waste they bring to the BHDS and taking it to facilities outside the county.
System Benefit Fee
Waste Management Division
Lane County Department of Public Works
What is the system benefit fee?
Lane County's Waste Management Division provides services and programs that benefit all Lane County residents and businesses who generate garbage. The system benefit fee, or SBF, is a means of making sure that all Lane County residents and businesses pay their fair share of the costs of those services and programs. For example, all Lane County residents have access to recycling and household hazardous waste programs that rank among the finest in the state, Educational services such as the Green School Incentive grants for schools and the Master Recycler program offering adult community education services, event recycling supplies, and more. All this in addition to an extensive network of convenient local transfer stations. Because these programs are offered to the community at no direct cost to the user, they must be funded through disposal fees collected at transfer stations and at the landfill. This system of collecting fees to fund programs has worked well for years, but when commercial garbage haulers begin haul their customers' trash to landfills that aren't operated by Lane County, revenues decrease -- but the costs of operating these programs that serve all citizens and customers stay the same. The SBF is a way to to ensure that both garbage operation costs and the community service programs are funded through the tip fees.
When this fee structure was first implemented many citizens were confused and the following explaination was used to describe how the fees hadn't increased.
Fee increases that have occured since that time now include costs of landfill operation and cost of community service programs itemized separately.
When you haul your residential or commercial trash to a disposal site operated by Lane County, your overall fee will be the same as it has been for the last several years. It works like this: before the new system was implemented, the basic disposal charge, or "tipping fee," at a Lane County site was $45 per ton (pro rated for smaller deliveries -- see our rates page for residential rates). From that $45, some money went to fund landfill operations, some was used to operate Lane County's system of 16 transfer sites, some went to the waste reduction and recycling program and the rest was used to support administrative costs and the household hazardous waste collection program.
With the new system in place, disposal costs will still total the same $45 per ton, but are broken down into two sub fees. The first, the tipping fee, is used solely to fund landfill operations, including capital improvements, leachate treatment, closure and post-closure care and prudent reserves, as well as the day to day costs of operating the landfill. This tipping fee is $27.24 per ton.
The second sub fee is the SBF of $17.76 per ton. Revenues collected through the SBF are used to support the Waste Reduction/Recycling and Special Waste programs, as well as the transfer system. Administrative costs are divided between the two elements.
If the fees haven't increased, why the change?
The difference comes when haulers use a disposal site other than Short Mt. Landfill. When that happens, they will pay that disposal site's tipping fee, in addition to Lane County's SBF of $17.76 per ton. Through this system, Lane County residents and businesses who generate garbage pay their fair share to support the other programs that benefit them, even if their trash doesn't end up in Short Mt. Landfill. Customers who haul to Lane County sites, and those who hire a commercial garbage hauler, shouldn't notice an increase in cost. Why? Because cities in Lane County that franchise garbage haulers use Lane County tipping fees in setting their municipal garbage collection rates. Therefore, commercial haulers' rates shouldn't be affected by the change in fee collection systems.
I believe it may be time to re-visit a fee option similar to Lane County.
The following is a link to a ruling by the Supreme Court in 2007 regarding a case that is extremely similar to ours. The suit was filed by a commercial hauler against a government owned facility. The Justices found in favor of the government facility by a vote of 6 to 3:
