The Haines Borough is introducing a program where residents can get rid of junk cars for only $50. But better move fast; only 15 vehicles will be accepted in the pilot program’s first shipment.
“We’ll take them to one of our yards, drain them, smash them, put them on flats and then ship them down to Seattle,” said borough public facilities director Brad Ryan.
Residents have until Sept. 16 to sign up. An early October shipment on an Alaska Marine Lines vessel is planned.
The program has been a controversial three years in the making. In 2013, the assembly approved a biennial vehicle registration tax of $22, earmarked to help dispose of junk cars, and the borough voted to use the money to buy a new flatbed truck for the project.
Darsie Culbeck, assistant to then-manager Mark Earnest at the time of the tax’s approval, said that it was aimed at a longstanding Haines problem: junk cars piling up with no cheap way to get rid of them.
“The problem is when cars die in Haines, there’s nowhere to dispose of them legally (that doesn’t cost) an $800 bill at local shops,” said Culbeck, now a borough consultant. “There’s hundreds and hundreds of dead cars in this town right now.”
But the ordinance ran into difficulties. In its first year, the registration tax brought in only a little more than half of the initial estimated $40,000 in revenue. And since the tax’s inception, the borough has only impounded a handful of junk cars.
The tax has also attracted criticism from many Haines residents, including assembly member George Campbell, who has pushed for its repeal. Campbell has for years criticized the borough for “getting into the towing business.”
Now, with the introduction of the first organized borough program set up to dispose of junk cars, the tax may be bearing fruit.
Under the new program, a $50 fee will go toward towing and disposal. Cars must be accessible from the road, and the owner must also be in possession of the vehicle’s title.
The cars will be hauled to a borough impound lot, where hazardous fluids will be removed and the vehicles flattened. The borough will work with Reilly Kosinski, an environmental health and safety specialist with Seattle-based recycler Total Reclaim.
“The main thing is getting the fuel, the oils, the antifreeze, and also the refrigerant out of those vehicles,” Kosinski said. “There is potential for contaminating the land.”
The crushed cars will then be placed on an Alaska Marine Lines vessel and shipped to Seattle for recycling.
Despite the $50 fee per vehicle, the pick up, processing, and shipping represent a significant cost for the borough. Public facilities director Ryan estimates that the vehicle tax, which brings in about $25,000 annually, will be more than enough to cover the program.
“We were thinking it would cost us about $600 a car total,” Ryan said, adding that shipping is the program’s biggest expense. He said the borough wants to proceed with caution.
“Because we’ve never done the program, I want to make sure we’re fiscally responsible,” he said. “If we have leftover funding, we’ll do it again next spring.”
Assembly member Campbell, a longtime critic of the vehicle registration tax, said he was not familiar with the new program. But he said a tax-based solution was not the answer, especially when the borough is running a $500,000 deficit.
“People should be responsible for their own vehicles,” Campbell said. “It’s nice to do little projects like this, but it would sure be nice to deal with the big problems instead of running around with the little stuff.”
Kosinski hailed the program’s introduction. “A lot of times smaller communities (like Haines) become black holes. These materials come in, but there’s no real plan in getting them back out,” he said. “It’s not a huge project, but it’ll help.”
A public meeting about the project will take place Thursday, Sept. 8, at 5:30 p.m. in the assembly chambers.