By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com

Plans discussed two weeks ago regarding raising rates at the county landfill may just as well go to the landfill as rubbish.

The discussion of increasing the county’s solid waste fees came to an abrupt halt Thursday.

Meeting for the second time in two weeks, the Crawford County Solid Waste District Policy Committee received some startling and disheartening news from Santek Waste Services’ Gary Adkins. Santek operates the landfill for the county commissioners.

During the last meeting the policy committee had discussed raising in-county and out-of-county fees from $1 to $2 per tonnage per in-county waste and $2.20 to $4 per tonnage for out-of-county waste. The county is currently dealing with the challenge of finding revenue to operate the recycling center as less solid waste – which generates the fees to operate the Crawford County Recycling Center – is brought into the landfill.

Adkins explained that the landfill lost tonnage and revenue when Milliron Auto Parts chose to send its auto fluff to Rumpke Waste and Recycling in Richland County. Santek took another hit when Milliron sold out to Rumpke on Jan. 9. The next big blow will come on Feb. 16 when Santek will lose one of its top five customers. That will result in a 10 percent reduction of volume into the county landfill.

Adkins said there was no chance that those customers would ever return.

“As a result, I’ve been forced to reduce all costs possible, including a reduction of workforce in three individuals,” Adkins said. “Now we’re faced with another obstacle: the Solid Waste District wants to increase its fees or taxes because of our loss in volume.

“What I’m seeing is going to happen is it’s either going to drive our customers away to other facilities or it’s going to put them into bankruptcy to sell out to the larger ones,” Adkins said. “I think there are more favorable solutions to this. I don’t know what the Solid Waste District can do.”

Adkins admitted that he knew surrounding counties had higher fees than Crawford County but he said they couldn’t compare this county to others like Richland or the Delaware, Knox, Marion, Morrow Joint Solid Waste District. That point was discussed at the Jan. 22 meeting when the committee observed that Wyandot, Wood, and Putnam counties had their disposal fees set at the state maximum.

The tonnage projected in the Crawford County Solid Waste Fund Forecast did not reflect the loss in tonnage from Milliron and the additional customer.

“Tonnage is a big driver on the revenue and helping us figure out what we have to do on the cost side,” noted committee member Doug Leuthold. “It sounds like we’ve got some significant variables that are going to influence that tonnage that somehow we’ve got to figure out how to revisit that tonnage; otherwise we’re just floundering around like a fish on a beach.”

Leuthold suggested that the committee be provided with various models that address several what-if scenarios.

“We need to take a look at what the dollar ramifications are and then we may have to go back through it and look at it from top to bottom,” Leuthold said. “We know the tonnage numbers are going down. We need to figure out what that worst-case scenario is. That’s going to drive the top end revenue and then we need to figure out what happens so we know what revenues we have to work with. Then we figure out where we go from there. We just have to figure out the logical approach.”

The committee discussed opening the landfill to out-of-state waste but a few members were hesitant to move in that direction, citing concerns that county residents may not want to shorten the landfill’s life expectancy with waste not generated in-county. Other options debated were attracting neighboring counties or attracting more industry into the county.

The next Solid Waste District Policy Committee meeting has been set for 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 11 at the Crawford County Engineer’s Office.