Wednesday, October 2, 2013
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County Solid Waste Policy Committee has voted to explore initiating a generation fee on waste originating in the county that is dumped in Ohio landfills.
Lou Vega, recycling director, said a new $2-per-ton fee to be paid by landfills would produce an estimated $484,766 a year in new revenue for the financially troubled county recycling division. A $1.50-per-ton generation fee would produce an estimated $363,574, he said.
A generation fee would be necessary to fulfill the county’s 15-year solid waste management plan as approved by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, which calls for a budget of about $2.8 million for 2014; and such a fee would allow restoration of some local recycling program cuts, Vega said.
On Tuesday, the committee approved a $2.3 million recycling-division budget for 2014, which does not include the new fee.
The new generation fee would be in addition to disposal fees of $1.50 per ton for landfilled waste originating in Mahoning County or out of state and $3 a ton for Ohio waste originating outside Mahoning County, which the division already collects from the county’s two active landfills.
The exact amount for the new generation fee would have to be approved by the committee and by governing bodies of political subdivisions representing 60 percent of the county’s population, including Youngstown City Council.
“Coming from the business sector, the last thing I look at is what it costs me to have my garbage hauled away,” said Tom Yanko, owner of Associated Paper Stock, a North Lima sorting and bundling center for recyclable materials. “I don’t think you’ll have any problem at all with the business sector on this generation fee,” added Yanko, who is a committee member.
“I’m never happy about any taxes, but I think it’s probably fair and equitable to everybody,” Mike Heher, manager of Republic Services’ Carbon-Limestone landfill in Poland, said of the proposed generation fee.
Thirteen of Ohio’s 52 solid-waste districts have both disposal and generation fees, Vega said.
This year, the division expects revenues of $2.3 million and expenses of $2.9 million, making up the difference by exhausting its $600,000 in carryover from 2012 to 2013.
Having lost a major revenue source when the Central Waste landfill in Smith Township closed last year, the division is balancing its 2013 budget by leaving two staff positions vacant, cutting its leaf-recycling spending, eliminating landfill haul road-maintenance spending and deferring payment of its $119,310 Oakhill Renaissance Place office rent for 2013 until next year.
Vega told the committee the division plans to close seven drop-off recycling centers next year among 36 such sites the division maintains countywide, for an estimated annual savings of about $27,000. The sites the division plans to close either produce a low volume of recyclables or are near other sites that will stay open, he said.
The sites that would close are: The Canfield Baseball Association’s McCune Park site on Shields Road; the Ohltown Road site in Austintown; the South Avenue Fire Station and Marwood Circle sites, both in Boardman; Colonial Villa Estates on Goshen Road in Goshen Township; the Jackson Township Fire Station on state Route 45; and the site behind Struthers City Hall on Elm Street.