Council set to make solid waste decision

The Maryville City Council on Monday is expected to make a final decision with regard to the fate of the municipal solid waste transfer station.

Classed as an “enterprise” operation, the transfer station, where garbage is compacted and loaded on trucks for shipment to approved landfills, is supposed to pay for itself through the collection of “tipping fees” paid mostly by local haulers.

Completion of a competing private-enterprise station east of town in 2012, however, has caused the facility to operate in the red at a cost to taxpayers of between $80,000 and $100,000 a year.

Discussion about what to do with the station has dragged on for months, but the council has set a self-imposed deadline of Jan. 25 for choosing one of several options.

One of those options was “municipalizing” trash service and contracting with a single hauler, a move that would likely have put several family-owned refuse concerns out of business.

As the debate evolved, however, the council displayed little enthusiasm for municipalization, and Maryville Mayor Renee Riedel suggested two weeks ago that the city should close the station altogether.

Several haulers have voiced opposition to closure, saying that without competition they fear Porter Trash Service, which owns the private transfer station, would significantly raise tipping fees.

Instead, they want the city to lease the station to an operator that would run it as a private concern in direct competition with Porter.

The city has received two bids from entities wishing to lease the station: one from the Maryville Trash Cooperative consisting of Klosek’s Trash Service, Mozingo Sanitation, and Gaskill & Son Trash Service, and one from American Recycling & Sanitation Inc. of Rock Port.

On Monday, the council is likely to consider, and perhaps choose, one of three options recommended by City Manager Greg McDanel and his staff.

These include rejecting both bids and closing the station following the expiration this summer of the city’s current landfill hauling contract with Deffenbaugh Industries Inc.; accepting one of the two bids on the table; or rejecting both bids and continuing to operate the transfer station as before. This last choice would likely mean continuing to subsidize the facility with taxpayer dollars from the General Fund.

Whatever is decided, the city will still be obligated to pay the Missouri Department of Natural Resources $30,000 a year for testing at the old city landfill, which was ordered closed in 2001. Including that payment, operational losses at the station for 2016 are estimated at $75,000.

In the event the station shuts down, Porter Trash Porter has proposed locking in rates for city street sweepings at $5 above cost and for debris disposal related to municipal demolitions at $10 above cost until 2020.

The company has also promised to freeze tipping fees for private haulers over the same period.

Other issues before the council this week include a proposed lot split application from 3131 E. 1st Street LLC, owners of the former Energizer battery factory at that address.

The proposed split would divide 63.64 acres of commercially zoned property into two separate tracts. Tract one would be a 37.51-acre commercial lot comprising the vacant plant and operations area. Tract two would encompass 26.13 acres of agricultural land.

Public Works Director C.E. Goodall said the purpose of the lot split is to separate acreage currently being leased as agricultural land for potential sale.

Also, the council is expected to approve ballot language for two sales-tax proposals set to go before voters in the April 5 municipal election.

These include renewal of an existing half-cent tax used to fund general operations at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park and creation of a new eighth-of-a-cent sales tax that would partially finance construction of a proposed Mozingo conference center and golf course clubhouse.