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Show Landfill fee proposal tabled for more study A fee for all users of the jointly-owned jointly-owned Vernal City and Uintah County Coun-ty landfill may not be too far off, as the Vernal City's proposing the fee, but county officials request time to study the situation. City Manager Kenneth Bassett told city and county officials, at a joint meeting Wednesday, the reason for the fee proposal was to have the land- fill "pay its own way." Three years ago Vernal City, who administers the landfill, implemented a commercial dumping fee of $2 a pickup, $3 for a one-ton truck or over and $6 for dumping tires. If the same fee schedule was approved ap-proved for residential use, the landfill would generate $58,000 in receipts from pickups and $5,400 from one-ton trucks based on the average usage of the landfill. The commercial landfill fee generated $15,000, but that wasn't enough to cover expenses. Last year the city's General Fund subsidized the landfill at $30,000. County commissioners gave lukewarm response to the landfill fee proposal saying that it would cause more people to dump along public roads and create an extra burden on other landfills in the county which have no fee. "I really think residents would resist the fee," Commissioner Byron Merrell said. "There are already problems at the Jensen landfill and a fee at this landfill land-fill will divert the dumping to the Jensen landfill," Commissioner Leo Snow said. Vernal City councilmen argued that since the landfill is used by everyone in the county, Vernal City residents are paying double taxes on the landfill land-fill with it subsidized by both city and county tax revenue. County residents only subsidize the landfill once. City residents, since they also pay county tax, subsidize the landfill twice. Bassett said that the user fee for the landfill was his second choice for a solution to the problem. "Our first choice would be to have the county take over the entire operation opera-tion of the landfill," Bassett said. Commissioners wanted to monitor the landfill for 30 days to determine what a user fee would generate, so the two bodies agrees to make a decision at their next meeting, Aug. 10. |
