The Rappahannock Regional Solid Waste Management Board (R-Board) will hold a special meeting today at 2:30p.m. to address the controversial fees now being charged to Stafford County and City of Fredericksburg residents for landfill use.
For residents attempting to drop off waste at their area landfills, they can expect to pay up to $12 per truckload, or opt for a $100 annual pass.
In their last meeting, the R-Board passed the residential fee structure, but the fees originally agreed upon were not what were implemented after the vote, according to Paul Milde, a Stafford County Supervisor and R-Board member.
“The Board embarrassed themselves by voting to have a complex fee structure, that was not even close to what they promised people, when they voted to have a fee,” Milde said.
Milde has been against the fees from the onset, stating that there were other options that would have carried less of a burden on residents.
“My vision is that there wouldn’t be fees – that through a series of subsidies from the County and the City, some savings on the landfill operations, and another look at waste energy, that we wouldn’t need to,” said Milde.
Prior to the new implementation of the fee structure, residents in Stafford County were receiving free litter pick up to the tune of around $300,000, according to Milde, which was being covered by the R-Board.
“Stafford is one of the last large counties – population wise and budget wise – to offer a free landfill services to their residents…and it was profitable, because we charged commercial haulers to dump. [But] the competition in landfills got fierce. So the amount of money we were getting for charging commercial haulers has been going down,” Milde commented.
According to Milde, to be competitive with nearby landfill facilities in Spotsylvania County, the R-Board would need to cut the rates charged for commercial haulers in half.
Waste to energy was another option in Stafford, but became a source of controversy and was ultimately shut down by the Stafford Board of County Supervisors.
“What I always wanted to do was put the litter pickup facility costs back on to the City and County respectively, and that would’ve given us some breathing room – making it not necessary for the fees,” Milde said.
When the R-Board meets this afternoon, Milde said he would support a vote on a $4 per load cap on the fees, despite his disapproval of the landfill fees in general.
“You’re going to have to get more money somehow, but you don’t need $12 per truckload – you do $3 or $4 – and that is also what was promised,” Milde said.
