Tipping Fee

Municipal officials in Carroll County should anticipate an increased fee for dumping in landfills, but the county government will continue to search for ways to keep the costs low, the County Commissioners decided yesterday.Once again, the commissioners postponed voting on whether to increase the tipping fee. But they agreed that local governments should budget for a fee of $53 per ton for fiscal 1995 rather than the current $40 fee.Ms. Gouge initially opposed raising the fee, but she and Commissioners Donald I. Dell and Elmer C. Lippy eventually agreed that the towns should be prepared to pay an increased fee during the next fiscal year.

An increase in the city's tipping fee prompted Havre de Grace City Council members to encourage residents to recycle more. The Havre de Grace City Council unanimously passed a resolution during Monday's meeting to raise the town's tipping fee to $15.50 per quarter from $12.25 per quarter - or a hike of $13 a year. The tipping fee, which is a quarterly charge to cover Harford County's per ton costs for use of landfills, was increased to cover the county's charges, which has risen to $67 per ton of solid waste from $50 per ton. City Councilman Randolph Craig said the past quarterly charge of $12.25 had "nearly" covered the town's costs to dispose of solid waste, but not all of it. The projected increases in costs per ton, the councilman said, are $68 in 2012, $70 in 2013 and $72 per ton in 2014.

Private haulers would take their trash elsewhere if Carroll County commissioners doubled the fee to dump construction debris in county landfills and raised the fee for other trash, some haulers said Friday.Representatives from eight refuse companies pushed the commissioners to make a decision about increasing the tipping fee. The commissioners -- who have been considering an increase for more than a year -- said they probably would make a decision Tuesday.The commissioners invited the haulers to a meeting Friday afternoon at the County Office Building to discuss the proposed tipping fee increase and the collection of yard waste.

The County Council cut nearly $1 million from the proposed operating budget last week but kept in place a 9 percent pay raise for government employees. The seven-member panel labored long over 111 amendments to the 2009 budget, which must go to the county executive by Friday. While some changes were the council's own, most came from the administration. Members approved all but a few of the amendments and are set to vote on the nearly $900 million budget Tuesday. "We have to make sure our amendments balance the budget," said Council President Billy Boniface.

All is not well in the on-again, off-again relationship between the county and its eight municipalities. For the second straight year, trash -- and the cost of getting rid of it -- is at the center of the quarrel."

The Harford County Council has denied a request for a $10 increase in the tipping fee that haulers pay to dispose of trash at the county landfill and waste-to-energy plant. By a 5-2 vote Tuesday, the council opted to keep the fee at $50 per ton. Public works officials estimated that the 20 percent increase would have generated an additional $1.6 million annually in revenues for the solid-waste fund. "I guess we will have to find the money somewhere else in the budget," said Robert Cooper, county director of public works.

Carroll commissioners voted unanimously yesterday not to increase the tipping fee for dumping in county landfills, but one commissioner warned that they are just postponing the inevitable."

Harford sent a draft of its trash recycling plan to the state for review last week but it ran into some last-minute opposition over a proposed $60-per-ton waste disposal fee.The County Council, in a review of the proposal last week, said it backed curbside pickup of bluebags filled with separated newspaper, glass, cans and other garbage from homes and businesses, as called for in the plan.But during a three-hour council hearing Tuesday night on the proposal, the $60-per-ton fee to support a new solid waste fund and encourage recycling was challenged by haulers and some representatives of homeowner associations.

Carroll's commissioners may have to increase the tipping fee for dumping in county landfills to help pay for maintaining landfills in the future.Beginning next year, Carroll must comply with "general accepted accounting standards, which require the county to charge a fee high enough to help pay future costs, Comptroller Eugene C. Curfman said yesterday.The current tipping fee is $40 a ton. About $34 of that is used to pay current operating costs and the rest goes to pay for future use, he told the commissioners during a staff meeting.

A Circuit Court judge has ruled that the county's tipping fee charged to haulers dumping trash at its landfills is illegal.In a written opinion released yesterday, Judge Maurice W. Baldwin upheld the town of Bel Air's refusal to pay the tipping fee of $35 a ton to dump trash at the county landfill."

The Harford County Council has denied a request for a $10 increase in the tipping fee that haulers pay to dispose of trash at the county landfill and waste-to-energy plant. By a 5-2 vote Tuesday, the council opted to keep the fee at $50 per ton. Public works officials estimated that the 20 percent increase would have generated an additional $1.6 million annually in revenues for the solid-waste fund. "I guess we will have to find the money somewhere else in the budget," said Robert Cooper, county director of public works.

The County Commissioners yesterday raised tipping fees at the Hoods Mill Landfill, off Hoods Mill Road near the Howard County border.Effective July 1, tipping fees will be $6 for cars, $7 for sport utility vehicles and $10 for pick-up trucks.Cars are now charged $4 and pick-up trucks are charged $6. The county does not have a separate charge for sport utility vehicles.J. Michael Evans, director of the county's Department of Public Works, said the fee increase is needed to offset the landfill's $37,000 deficit.

Woods Waste Removal Inc. has won a three-year contract to collect trash in Union Bridge, effective July 1.The Town Council awarded the contract to the Westminster-based Woods, the lower of two bidders, at its meeting Monday night.The family-owned refuse hauling company will charge an escalating fee to pick up garbage and recyclables from Union Bridge's 460 customers. The contract does not include bulk trash pickup.The service will cost the town $24,159 in 1998-1999, $24,398 in 1999-2000 and $24,816 in 2000-2001, excluding the county landfill tipping fee, which will increase from $45 to $47 a ton July 1.Town officials estimate that despite the increased tipping fee, the new contract will reduce the town's total refuse collection costs by about $10,000 over three years.

Trash haulers in Carroll County will pay an additional $2 for each ton of waste they dump at the county's Northern Landfill, beginning July 1.But Carroll residents will continue to get coupons for two free trips to the landfill a year.The County Commissioners yesterday raised the tipping fee to $47 per ton, which will generate an additional $215,000 a year.The actions were part of a review of the county's proposed solid waste budget for the next fiscal year.The commissioners retained a program that provides coupons, attached to county property tax bills.

The town of Bel Air goes to court tomorrow against the Harford County government to determine whether it owes more than $350,000 for dumping its municipal garbage at county landfills.The county Circuit Court trial is expected to resolve a dispute that began in November 1992. That, the town says, is when it received its first bill from the county, for $35 per ton of waste hauled to the county landfills for disposal.The town questioned the county's right to charge the so-called tipping fee, saying it was an illegal tax.As of May 10, the Bel Air owed $304,373 in principal and $47,334 in interest, said George Harrison, a spokesman for the county.

Well over a year ago, it was pointed out in this space that Harford County government's insistence on welshing on its long-term landfill agreement with the Town of Bel Air could lead ++ to wide-ranging adverse consequences.The first impact came two weeks ago, when the Harford Circuit Court ruled that the county was illegally collecting a $35-a-ton tipping fee charged against trash haulers to use the Scarboro landfill.Because those collected fees were mixed with other revenues in the county solid waste fund, and not applied specifically to the services provided by the landfill (or the county recycling-sorting center)

Carroll Comptroller Eugene C. Curfman yesterday repeated advice he gave the commissioners last April -- raise the tipping fee for dumping in county landfills to $53 a ton.But, like last year, the commissioners delayed making a decision.Commissioners Donald I. Dell and Elmer C. Lippy said they did not want to make a decision without Commissioner Julia W. Gouge, who was ill yesterday.The county needs to raise its tipping fee to help pay for building and operating future landfills, Mr. Curfman said.

Harford officials, who have long battled rubble landfills, want to create a tipping fee for the county's only remaining private rubble fill, a move that would raise developers' tab for disposing of construction debris.County Councilman Barry T. Glassman has been lobbying the county's state delegates for legislation to give Harford state permission to create the fee.The proposed per-load fee, still unspecified, would be collected by the private fill and turned over to the county, which would use the money to increase the health department's budget, Mr. Glassman said.

A Circuit Court judge has ruled that the county's tipping fee charged to haulers dumping trash at its landfills is illegal.In a written opinion released yesterday, Judge Maurice W. Baldwin upheld the town of Bel Air's refusal to pay the tipping fee of $35 a ton to dump trash at the county landfill."

Private haulers would take their trash elsewhere if Carroll County commissioners doubled the fee to dump construction debris in county landfills and raised the fee for other trash, some haulers said Friday.Representatives from eight refuse companies pushed the commissioners to make a decision about increasing the tipping fee. The commissioners -- who have been considering an increase for more than a year -- said they probably would make a decision Tuesday.The commissioners invited the haulers to a meeting Friday afternoon at the County Office Building to discuss the proposed tipping fee increase and the collection of yard waste.