County settles suit with waste hauler

By Peter H. Milliken

County officials say they’re monitoring landfill waste origin and fee payment.

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County commissioners have approved settlement of a lawsuit the county joined against a waste hauler accused of misidentifying the source of waste it hauled to Mahoning County landfills.

The county’s recycling division will receive $129,381 in the settlement approved Thursday.

Late last year, Mahoning County joined a lawsuit that had earlier been filed by the Geauga-Trumbull Solid Waste Management District against Wolford’s Refuse and Recycling Inc. of McDonald.

The suit, which was filed in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, said Wolford’s inaccurately declared that the waste it was dumping in Mahoning County landfills originated in Mahoning County, when the waste actually came from Trumbull County.

By doing this, Wolford’s saved $5 per ton in dumping fees, paying $1.50 too little to Mahoning County and none of the $3.50 it owed to Geauga-Trumbull.

The Geauga-Trumbull Solid Waste Management District’s governing board has approved the settlement, in which the district will receive $387,619.

Wolford’s was bought out in June 2007 by Waste Management of Ohio Inc., of Cleveland, which was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

By agreeing to the settlement, Mahoning County collected most of the $161,000 it said it was shorted, and it eliminated the time, expense and risk of going to trial, sad Tim Tusek, assistant Mahoning County prosecutor.

Tusek said the county would consider filing civil lawsuits or criminal charges in cases where waste origin is misidentified.

“Follow the law. Don’t do it because it’s going to be uncovered,” Tusek warned potential violators.

Jim Petuch, Mahoning County recycling director, said the landfills are being monitored by his office, deputy sheriffs and county health inspectors to ascertain accurate reporting of waste origin and payment of correct fees.

In other business, county Administrator George Tablack announced that next year, the county will make its final payment and burn the mortgage on the $24 million it borrowed toward the $42 million county jail, which opened in 1996.

This will terminate about $4 million in annual debt payments by the county at a time when county tax revenues will likely drop due the world and national economic crisis, he said.

Tablack also said the $7.3 million the county borrowed in 2005 to keep deputies working at the jail while the county sales tax revenue was in limbo will be paid in full in 2010.

Commissioners also:

UApproved spending $25,000 for a reminder mailing to delinquent real estate taxpayers.

UUrged a yes vote Nov. 4 on Issue 2, renewal of the Clean Ohio Fund.

UUrged a yes vote on Issue 5 to uphold Ohio’s payday lending reform law.

UUrged passage of Issue 8 — the new quarter-percent, five-year sales tax to provide countywide Western Reserve Transit Authority bus service.