Agenda - Council - 01/12/1982 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I I i I I I I I I I I ! I I -7- expensive to site and they will have advanced environmen- tal engineering features. It is not clear, however, how many haulers will find it more economical to use resource recovery facilities instead of landfills. This would depend on many factors, including location of disposal facilities and who owns the new landfills. THERE IS CONCE .RN ABOUT THE WISDOM OF MAN- DATING TIlE USE OF RESOURCE RECOVERY FACILI- TIES. There is concern that mandating use of designated disposal sites would remove the economic incentives for operators of those facilities to contain expenses and provide respon- sive service. Under mandatory disposal, refuse haulers would have no choice as to where to dispose o,f their trash. Consequently, operators of disposal facilities would not have to be con- cerned that high prices or poor service which would lead haulers to go elsewhere with their trash. An analogy has been drawn between mandating disposal of solid waste at resource recovery facilities and mandating that people ride the bus. With a guaranteed supply of pas- sengers, the bus company operator would have little incen- tive to provide low cost, high quality service-so the reason- ing goes. Concern about the implications for cost containment and service quality has been expressed by legislators and gov- ernment staff as well as the Citizens League in the past. Some people think incentives for cost containment and pro- riding quality service could exit, even though the disposal facility operator had a guaranteed supply of waste. One member of our committee suggested that professional stan- dards for facility operators would encourage efficient per- formance. He also suggested that public officials could oversee the operation of a plant in an effort to insure effi- cient performance. There is cone. em that mandating disposal sites would lead to cheating on the part of haulers and a need for enforce- ment by local governments. We were told by several people, including private haulers, that cheating would be likely to occur if haulers faced increased expenses at resource recovery sites compared to landfills. Haulers would be able to save money by going to a landfill. Considering :hr; possibility of cheating, local governments would need to make sure haulers took their loads to a resource recovery plant. Enforcing mandatory .disposal could be very difficult, considering the large number of haulers operating in the region. Some evidence indicates that, under certain conditions, en- forcement of manda_tory disposal is not difficult. In the Western Lake Superi6r Sanitary District surrounding Du- luth (the only area in Minnesota where a mandatory dispos- al ordinance exists) cheating is possible. Two privately owned landfills exist in the Duluth environs. Officials of the Sanitary District say the enforcement is not a problem though. One of the landfills is far enough away from the city to make it uneconomical for haulers to go there. The other private landfill is restricted to use for dumping demo- lition debris. Officials say that residents living near the land- Fill report trucks that use it to dump municipal solid waste. (The resource recovery facility in Duluth is inoperative.) Some people think mandating disposal facilities amounts to an invis~le subsidy of resource recovery. It is clear that, at least for the forseeable future, in order for resource recovery facilities to have lower tipping fees than hndFflls, and therefore compete effectively against them, some public subsidy will be needed. Some forms of subsidy are more visible than others though. One way to subsidize a facility would be to levy a tax speci- fically for the purpose of paying part or all of its operating costs. This kind of subsidy would permit the public to clearly identify the costs associated with running the plant and to see that other disposal options were less expensive. The merits of the subsidy could also be evaluated periodic- ally prior to the lewing of the tax. This form of subsidy is more visible and therefore, in the minds of some people, preferable to mandatory disposal. Under mandatory disposal, a subsidy could be provided without levying a tax. Haulers would merely pass along to homeowners the increased costs of disposal associated with resource recovery. The subsidy would not be publicly de- bated periodically under this plan, nor would the total cost of the subsidy be clearly recognizable. Furthermore, most people are not likely to know what the cost of dis- posal at a resource recovery plant will be before the plant is built. When the subsidy comes through a tax, public offi- cials are likely to require a judgment on the level of subsidy needed to operate the plant, before they support its con- struction. Some people think mandating disposal facilities spreads the burden of .financing the subsidy for resource recover3' phnts over too narrow a base of payers.