For many area households, the price of getting rid of the garbage will soon rise.
Faced with shrinking bank accounts and a costly expansion project, the people who run the landfill where most local trash ends up approved a rate hike Wednesday evening.
Starting Jan. 1, 2009, the cost of dumping a cubic yard of waste in the landfill will be $8.50, which is $3.50 higher than the current rate.
The North Central Iowa Regional Solid Waste Agency Board approved the boost on a 63-1 vote. The lone dissenting vote came from Gowrie, where Mayor Dick Phillips said the city doesn't have the money to cover the increase.
A recommendation to raise the dumping fee by 25 cents per cubic yard annually for five years, starting July 1, 2009, was rejected on a 46-18 vote. That proposal was recommended by the agency's executive committee. Fort Dodge City Manager David Fierke proposed it as a way to help ensure that agency revenue keeps pace with inflation. Fierke said he will reintroduce the proposal in January.
For lots of local residents, the $3.50 per cubic yard boost will be reflected in the monthly bills they receive for trash collection.
Fierke said a 75 cents per month increase will be needed in Fort Dodge. That increase will raise the monthly fee from the current $9.60 to $10.35. Fierke said he'll ask the City Council to make that increase effective on Jan. 1.
Humboldt residents won't see an increase. Lorie Bennett, the city administrator there, said the increase can be absorbed with the current rate structure. Humboldt residents pay a base fee of $5 per month for garbage collection. But because the city has unit-based fee system to encourage recycling, residents must buy special trash bags. For a package of 10, those bags cost $9 or $13.50, depending on the size of the bags.
Those bags go to a landfill south of Fort Dodge that's rapidly running out of room. There is ground that can be used, but it must be properly prepared. That will cost an estimated $1.9 million. But the cost could go up by another $1 million if the state Department of Natural Resources requires a plastic liner in the new landfill section.
DNR officials are now reviewing a proposal that would place a 5-foot thick clay liner in that new section.
''We're probably going to have a fight on our hands to get them to approve the clay liner,'' said Gary Schmidt, the agency's director.
No matter what type of liner is used, the agency doesn't have the money on hand to create the new section or do much else.
Scott Stevenson, the agency's financial adviser from Ruan Securities, told the board Wednesday that the $3.50 increase is needed to cover current costs and the new landfill section.
''You're in a situation where a rate increase is necessary to go forward,'' he said. ''Your reserves are basically gone, to be honest.''
The North Central Iowa Solid Waste Agency serves Webster and Hamilton counties, all of Humboldt County except Bode, plus Eagle Grove, Rockwell City, Knierim, Pomeroy and Manson. It has an annual budget of about $3 million.
Contact Bill Shea at (515) 573-2141 or bshea@messengernews.net