County Asks Solid Waste Committee To Add New Landfill to Plan
By Paul Gingras

To rectify a situation in which a trash removal company has a monopoly in the county, because it owns the only county-approved landfills, Mackinac County is pushing the Eastern Upper Peninsula Solid Waste Committee to allow a new landfill into the solid waste plan for Mackinac, Chippewa, and Luce counties. Doing so would allow Ohio-based Republic Waste Services and other trash haulers to compete with Waste Management, which dominates trash disposal services in the region. Some township and county representatives believe that creating competition will improve services, reduce costs for solid waste disposal in parts of Mackinac County, and add a handful of jobs to the area. But Republic has not made pricing information available and Waste Management contends competition would actually force a price increase, because the sparsely populated Eastern Upper Peninsula cannot support another landfill.

Trash disposal in Mackinac County is governed by a solid waste plan, which is overseen by the EUP Regional Planning and Development Commission. The plan specifies which landfills can be used for dumping tri-county trash. The primary site, at Dafter, is owned by Waste Management, so to be competitive, Republic Waste wants the solid waste plan to include a landfill in Presque Isle County that is owned by Republic, said Aaron Hopper, chairman of Regional Planning's 16-member Solid Waste Committee.

The Mackinac County Board of Commissioners supports the initiative to allow a second trash hauler to operate in the area. In the past year, the board has sent letters to Regional Planning asking it to add Republic Waste's facility to the solid waste plan, but the proposal has been voted down three times by the Solid Waste Committee. It was defeated most recently Tuesday, December 12, sparking protests by the Moran Township Board of Trustees, which spearheaded the initiative to bring a competing trash hauler to the area.

John Campbell, director of Regional Planning, said he believes making more companies involved in solid waste disposal would be a good strategic and economic move for the county. But he and Moran Township Supervisor Jim Durm and Mackinac County Commission Chair Dawn Nelson contend that the Solid Waste Committee includes Waste Management employees, who vote against changes that would allow competition.

The Department of Environmental Quality requires that four committee members be in the waste disposal industry, but the industry representatives do not have to be employees of Waste Management. For all recent votes on this matter, three of the four industry representatives were Waste Management employees and all three voted against including another company's landfill, said Jeff Hagen of Regional Planning.

At the December meeting, 11 members were present. Four voted to add the Republic landfill while five voted against it, including Chairman Hopper, who told The St. Ignace News that members of the committee felt a representative from Mackinac County was needed to "shore up the effort." Two other members of the committee abstained from the vote. One was a representative from Chippewa County, Bernie LaJoie, who did not realize he had been appointed to the committee and was expected to vote, "which was unfortunate," Mr. Hagen said. The other was a representative from Curtis, Mike Soder, who said he didn't feel he had enough information from either side of the issue to make a decision and said his one vote wouldn't have been enough to change the outcome, anyway. Mr. Soder said he thinks the committee should meet more often to deliberate such proposals.

His abstention from the vote, however, was disappointing to the Mackinac County Board of Commissioners, Mrs. Nelson said.

He should have voted and done his duty for the EUP, she added; "He was our man."

"It should have passed easily," Mr. Hopper said, adding that seldom do all board members attend meetings and vote.

In response to the vote, Mr. Campbell discussed changes to the solid waste plan at the Mackinac County Board of Commissioners meeting Thursday, January 11, where he said the county has two options.

First, Mackinac County could recommend new members for appointment to the Solid Waste Committee. Regional Development, the entity that appoints the committee's members, would decide whether to accept the recommendations, Mr. Hagen said. It is a good time to do so, he added, because terms for 14 of the members have expired.

Mackinac County could also choose to withdraw from the tricounty plan and form a solid waste plan of its own. Either way, Waste Management will continue to play a major role in trash disposal in the county, Mr. Campbell explained.Representatives from Mackinac County on the Solid Waste Committee include Messrs. Campbell, Durm, and Soder and Bruce Zimmerman of St. Ignace, who is director of the Mackinac Island DPW.

Some committee members wanted a member of the Mackinac County Board of Commissioners there to discuss the county's position prior to making a major change in trash disposal in the EUP, Mr. Hopper said.

Changing membership on the Solid Waste Committee would be easier for Mackinac County than creating a new plan of its own, Mr. Campbell said, so the county made recommendations and Regional Planning agreed to change membership on the Committee Thursday, February 1. The Committee will retain only one member from Waste Management, but Regional Planning has not yet contacted all the new, potential appointees. When new membership is established, the Committee will vote again on the proposal to add Republic Waste's landfill to the solid waste plan, Mr. Hagen said.Lynn Morgan, a spokesperson for Waste Management, told The St. Ignace News that "the committee has had very sound reasons for repeatedly rejecting requests to export waste to the Elk Run Landfill in Presque Isle County. Unfortunately, some folks are now focused on our participation in the debate," she said, "rather than the real and costly consequences of that proposal."

Waste Management disputed the assertion that it could charge competitors too much to use its disposal facilities. All haulers are charged the same rate, Ms. Morgan said, but volume discounts are awarded.

Matt Neeley, area president for Republic, said driving Republic's own trucks from its disposal site, picking up trash, and returning would be far cheaper for the company than conducting trash pick up in Mackinac County, driving to Waste Management's site in Dafter, which is in Chippewa County, and then returning to its facility in lower Michigan.

Besides, he argues, Waste Management keeps the landfill profits in Dafter, while Republic would keep them at Elk Run.

Ms. Morgan at Waste Management, however, contends that landfill profits depend on volume.

"The high costs of [running] a modern, fully engineered landfill such as Dafter," she said, "are affordable only because the site receives sufficient volumes of waste to spread its expenses across many users. The area just can't afford another landfill in the long run."

She added that the Solid Waste Committee has created a system that keeps trash disposal costs as low as possible, while also focusing on environmental protection. While bringing in another company may reduce costs for some residents for a time, without sufficient trash volume to support two landfills, one or the other eventually would close, she predicts. Then, the area would be back to one facility.

Mr. Neeley said this is not likely to happen to the Elk Run Landfill because it is operating now without being part of the solid EUP's plan.

Owing to the location of the Waste Management landfill in Dafter, the solid waste plan as been a "good fit" for the region, Ms. Morgan said, partly because the plan has allowed transportation distances to be minimized.

Mr. Campbell said Waste Management must haul trash 30 miles from St. Ignace to its disposal site. Republic would have to transport it 62.67 miles.

"Republic Waste is at a serious disadvantage right off the bat," he said.

Mr. Neeley said estimates of how much he would charge are not available for comparison with Waste Management's prices because its landfill is not yet approved and bids have not been made, but, "if people have an alternative, it usually results in cost savings," he said.

Trustee Mark Spencer of Moran Township said this has been his hope all along.

Competition from Republic would also draw funding away from Dafter Township, Ms. Morgan said.

The township receives 10¢ for every cubic yard of waste disposed in its local landfill, Mr. Campbell said.

Dafter Township Supervisor Wayne Trepanier said that removing revenue produced by Mackinac County's waste disposal would not be a significant financial blow to his municipality.

"We would notice the reduction," he said, "but it would not cause us to cut services."

He added that if the competition reduces waste disposal costs for people elsewhere in the EUP, then he considers it a good thing, but the change would not help the people of Dafter. He also said that Waste Management has been generous to the area and has helped with road paving costs.

One of Waste Management's key arguments against potential competition is that "amending the solid waste plan could put the area's fledgling recycling programs at risk."

Ms. Morgan told The St. Ignace News that "Waste Management provides recycling in St. Ignace, Sault Ste. Marie, and other communities, as well as several schools.Mr. Neeley said that Republic operates recycling programs across the United States and collects recyclable materials from many of its customers in Michigan. The company then delivers them to independent processors in the state, he added.

Waste Management would not immediately cut programs or raise disposal prices if the solid waste plan were amended, Ms. Morgan said. But if the company's resources are reduced, its ability to donate to area projects would be lessened, making it much harder to contribute to recycling programs, donate to athletic teams or road projects.

"These are the kinds of projects that go by the wayside," Ms. Morgan said. Nevertheless, should access to Waste Management sites become unavailable, Mr. Campbell said, the EUP would need access to other approved landfills. Aside from the Dafter facility, the only other approved landfill in the Upper Peninsula is near Munising, owned by a small company called Wood Island Management, Inc.

Increased employment is also argued by Moran Township trustees. Mr. Neeley of Republic said, "We always hire from the communities we service," so adding service to Mackinac County could result in hiring drivers from the area, as well as the potential to hire more people to work at its disposal site."

Disappointed with the most recent vote to keep another company's landfill out of the solid waste plan, Commission Chairwoman Nelson said that if the Solid Waste Committee continues to deny other companies the ability to successfully do business in the EUP, the Mackinac County Board of Commissioners may vote to form a solid waste plan of its own.

The county, however, wouldn't operate a Mackinac County waste disposal system, Mr. Campbell explained. Forming its own plan would simply allow the commissioners to choose which companies it does business with, allowing Waste Management, Republic, and possibly other companies to operate in the area.

Undeterred by Waste Management's objections, Mackinac County is pushing to approve other landfills in the county's plan to operate in the county, and Mark Spencer of the Moran Township Board of Trustees said he has made bringing Republic to the county a special project.

"Competition breeds better service," he said.

One of the reasons the area needs better service, Mr. Spencer told The St. Ignace News, is that his board has received complaints throughout the year that Waste Management's facility in St. Ignace is repeatedly closed during scheduled hours. Residents transport trash significant distances, he said, only to find that they cannot dispose of it.

Waste Management called this allegation "puzzling."

"The general hours have not changed for two years," Ms. Morgan said, "and we are aware of only one three-minute delay in opening the center." Perhaps the changeover from the longer summer hours to the shorter fall, winter, and spring hours, caused confusion, she speculated.