New trash deal to save Whitman County $400k a year

A new contract to haul garbage away from Whitman County will save the solid waste department more than $400,000 a year.

Public Works Director Mark Storey will present county commissioners next Monday with a contract proposal from Allied Waste. Storey said the deal with Allied provides significant savings over the county’s current deal with Waste Management.

Cost to ship waste from Whitman County will be about $53 per ton for Allied, down from the approximately $68 a ton the county pays to Waste Management.

On average, the county transfer station loads out more than four trucks with 23.5 tons of trash every day.

With the reduced disposal rates, Storey said Whitman County disposers can expect to see a reduction in the current $103 tipping fee, potentially as soon as next year.

“We definitely would like to drop down below $100,” said Storey. “I think we can do that under this deal.”

The main saving under the new deal is in transportation costs.

Trash collected in Whitman County is currently hauled by truck from the transfer station on Carrothers Road between Colfax and Pullman to Waste Management’s mega-landfill at Arlington, Ore.

Allied Waste operates a landfill at Roosevelt, which is in Washington, directly across the Columbia River from Arlington.

Storey said Allied’s rate is reduced because it has a fixed contract with Burlington Northern Santa Fe to haul trainloads of trash to Roosevelt from a station in the Spokane Valley.

That means Whitman County waste will only have to be trucked north to Spokane Valley, instead of Oregon.

The county’s current Waste Management deal, which expires in June, puts a surcharge on haul rates whenever the price of diesel rises above $1.56 a gallon. The Waste Management deal was signed in 2004 or 2005, said Storey.

Storey noted the Waste Management deal also included a clause that gave the county a rebate when diesel dipped below $1.56 a gallon. The county never received a rebate.

Storey also noted the train shipment provides an environmental benefit by reducing the amount of fuel used to transfer trash out of the county.

“Not only are we saving money, we’re making things a little greener,” said Storey.

The Allied deal will delay plans to build a new landfill cell at the Carrothers Road station.

The new landfill cell had been in the works as a way to localize disposal and cut shipping costs.

“With this bid price so good, we decided we could put that on the back burner for now,” said Storey.

The savings will also allow for some much-needed improvements at the transfer station, said Storey.

“We are at capacity, and there are some serious safety issues that need to be addressed,” he said.

Among them is replacing the conveyor system with a pit-load set-up. The county will also use the savings to build storage to meet an increasing demand for recycling space.

“This re-bill actually makes these things more do-able,” he said. “And if it will reduce rates, too, that’s all the better.”