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Cottage Grove Garbage Service has served Cottage Grove and the surrounding rural area for 52 years. We believe our success is rooted in caring about the people we serve and providing exceptional service at a reasonable price.
Our mantra has always been: “Without the customer, there is no us.” We do our best every day to practice that belief.
In the spring and summer of 2023, we raised concerns about the impact Lane County’s proposed CleanLane project would have on the cost of disposal fees at Short Mountain Landfill.
We felt those concerns were not heard.
In response, Cottage Grove Garbage Service began using a less expensive disposal alternative. We felt it was the prudent thing to do.
A month later, Lane County Waste Management asked where I was disposing of our collected waste. I told them I was using a less expensive option because I was looking out for the best interests of our ratepayers.
In my view, Lane County underestimated a simple economic reality. As disposal prices increase, private haulers with lawful, less expensive alternatives have an incentive to use them.
In December 2023, Lane County commissioners moved forward and approved the CleanLane project and four annual disposal rate increases, with the first taking effect on July 1, 2024. Three months later, the county signed a contract and committed to a long-term partnership with a price tag of more than $300 million over the 25-year agreement.
Under that agreement, Lane County guaranteed it would deliver a minimum of 120,000 tons of municipal solid waste to CleanLane. If the tonnage was short, Lane County would have to pay its contractor, Bulk Handling Systems, known as BHS, for its lost processing revenue. It made that commitment knowing it did not control the flow of all waste collected by private haulers.
Unfortunately, the financial risk did not stop there. Lane County also faces a $12,000 per day penalty payable to BHS if it doesn’t meet the contractual building completion deadline. That deadline has long passed and no building has been constructed. The county argues that the land-use appeals and resulting delays fall within contractual exceptions and therefore, it doesn’t owe the penalty.
Last November, Lane County sent Cottage Grove Garbage Service a letter demanding that waste collected in unincorporated Lane County be disposed of at Short Mountain Landfill under Lane Code. They wanted that revenue back.
Because of that added cost, the garbage bill for the ratepayers outside the city of Cottage Grove went up 11%. The earlier concerns Cottage Grove Garbage Service raised about CleanLane’s impact on the ratepayers are no longer hypothetical.
In the beginning, Lane County called the garbage haulers stakeholders. I felt that meant our legitimate concerns regarding cost and financial risk would be taken seriously. But they weren’t.
Lane County should have listened.
