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The Board of Commissioners voted unanimously for the changes — which will also cut hours at facilities in Creswell and Veneta — as declining landfill revenue has created a $3 million budget shortfall.
Lane County will close one of the 15 transfer stations where residents take their trash and reduce hours at others to close a $3 million waste management division deficit.
The county Board of Commissioners voted without opposition Tuesday, July 7, to close its transfer station in Walton, the waste disposal network’s least-used site, effective Aug. 10.
The Creswell station, also proposed for closure, will stay open but only on Fridays and Saturdays, instead of its current four days a week. The Veneta station’s hours will drop from six days a week to four.
“Adjusting hours or days or closing transfer stations, that is something that really impacts folks that use those transfer stations in a negative way,” said Jeff Orlandini, manager of the Division of Waste Management. “We also recognize that we won’t have a division if we continue running at the deficit we are now, and so these hard decisions need to be made.”
Fees that commercial trash haulers pay at the county’s Short Mountain Landfill help cover the Waste Management Division’s budget. Those revenues have dropped, creating the $3 million gap, as Sanipac, a hauler and subsidiary of Texas-based Waste Connections, trucks waste to its own landfill near Medford.
Tuesday, county commissioners deliberated their options to bridge the gap, a combination of shuttering individual transfer stations and increasing fees at the remaining ones.
Commercial trash haulers will also now face a 5% increase in the fees they pay at the county landfill, and a $10 hike in minimum fees. A presentation shared Tuesday estimated that those increases would bring in $610,000 and $1.9 million, respectively.
The Walton station closure will generate $50,000, and the reduction of hours at Creswell and Veneta will bring in about $219,500, per the presentation.
In total, the option approved by the board is estimated to generate just over $3 million in revenue — enough to close the waste management division’s fiscal year deficit, but “not a comfortable margin,” Orlandini said.
The option also includes the elimination of $174,000 in recycling rebates and a $232,000 cut in the county’s climate program funding.
County commissioners agreed that closing any of the stations, which offer an alternative for residents who would otherwise rely on a commercial trash hauler or would have to take garbage to the dump themselves, wasn’t their first choice. The conversation included every commissioner except Laurie Trieger, who was absent.
The nearest transfer station to Walton is about 16 miles away in Veneta. The other nearest station is in Swisshome, 26 miles away.
Explaining the decision to close the Walton station, Orlandini said it didn’t experience an increase in customers after a transfer station in Mapleton — then the least-used site — shuttered more than a decade ago.
Heather Buch, who represents the district encompassing Creswell, said she received pushback from city residents about the proposed closure of the local station.
“It is well-used from the people that are calling and writing to me, and what they have told me is they would not want to see the Creswell transfer station closed,” Buch said. “I really cannot support the option that closes it.”
Frustration over the circumstances that led to the division’s deficit — Sanipac’s hauling of trash to a landfill outside Lane County — surfaced during county commissioners’ discussion.
“We all know about it, and we all talk about it, we all think about it, we all kind of shove it into a corner, say, ‘Well, that’s a business decision,’” Commissioner Pat Farr said.
County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky said county officials are obligated to act in the best interest of their residents, not those of “shareholders and Wall Street.”
“The solution that we put on the table for Sanipac Waste Connections is to provide them essentially the same rate that they charge at their [Medford] landfill,” he said. “They don’t need to haul waste three hours south and back, they can just bring it back to Short Mountain.”
The $112.46 tipping fee at the county landfill includes a $53.63 system benefit fee to pay for waste and recycling services. The tipping fee at Waste Connections’ site near Medford is $97.63.
Commissioner David Loveall pushed back, saying the county pushed away the haulers by imposing higher fees to pay to build a massive recycling facility known as CleanLane, an expensive and troubled proposed project. “That’s called capitalism,” he said.
“I don’t support closing the transfer stations,” Loveall said. “I also don’t support vilifying a reputable company that’s been in our community ever since I’ve been a kid playing baseball.”
