King George’s landfill is for King George residents to use, and they want to keep it that way.
The county landfill is seeking funding from its county’s Board of Supervisors to hire two additional part-time employees. Part of their job duties will be to ensure Stafford residents don’t dump their trash illegally at King George’s landfill, according to landfill manager Jeff Jenkins.
“This is something that we’ve been looking into…we’ve been looking at this for a while. It just kind of got pushed to the forefront with Stafford starting to charge [for landfill use]. [Dumping] is not a big issue here – but sometimes there are people trying to get down here, and we just want to get it before it becomes a problem. You’ve got to realize we’re right here at the Staffordline,” Jenkins said.
The move comes after The Rappahannock Regional Solid Waste Management Board (R-Board) instituted a new disposal fee for Stafford County and Fredericksburg City residents who use the Stafford County Regional Landfill.
Residents can purchase an annual pass that costs $100, a 10-coupon booklet for $30, or pay $4 per visit at the Eskimo Hill landfill location.
There have been several complaints filed by Stafford residents in recent weeks about a increase in the amount of garbage found dumped along streets near the Stafford landfill.
Matthew Kelly and William Withers, both sit on the Fredericksburg City Council and on the R-Board, and commented on the issue.
“[Littering] was one of the major things we were concerned about. We were certainly hoping that would not happen…the one thing that I do know is that we had to have enough money to run the landfill – and without those charges, we could not have done that,” said Withers.
Kelly said the illegal dumping issue is isolated to Stafford, and he has not seen any of the same issues in Fredericksburg City.
“I can tell you from the city of the equation, we have not had any significant dumping issues. It’s an unfortunate situation – there’s no question about it,” Kelly said.
Withers and Kelly both stand by their vote in favor of the landfill fees.
“Well we didn’t have a choice,” Withers said.
“I actually voted against the current [flat] fee structure…we have a deficit we have to deal with. And as we moved through this, I asked a lot of people questions about it…I got a lot of ‘I don’t like it’ but I didn’t get a lot of suggestions,” said Kelly, continuing, “Stafford specifically voted against providing any additional funding [for the landfill] to the R-Board, to make up the deficit.”
While the R-Board will try to come up with a solution that will meet the need to handle the deficit, and the growing littering problem in the county, Kelly made it known that the problem reflects more on the citizens than the R-Board.
“…[the dumping] says something about our society, and not about decisions made by the R-Board. That people would begin dumping to avoid a relatively small fee, to make up a deficit…I think it says more about the people dumping than anything else,” Kelly said.
