An idea to cut the municipality’s solid waste bill in half is going to the Haines Borough’s Solid Waste Working Group.

Interim Borough Manager Brad Ryan said shipping the borough’s garbage to the Lower 48 could reduce the government’s annual trash bill from $39,000 to about $20,000. But the borough assembly Tuesday expressed concerns, including what affect the change could have on prices paid by residents to Community Waste Solutions, the town’s lone garbage company.

Ryan proposes the borough establish its own transfer station, purchasing two, 40-foot shipping containers to be placed near the sewage treatment plant on East Fair Drive. The borough also would buy two chassis.

The borough currently self-hauls garbage to Community Waste Solutions at a rate of 27 cents per pound for disposal. Entering into a contract with Regional Disposal Company of Washington would reduce the borough’s per-pound rate to 8 cents, Ryan said.

“In the end, I saw this pretty simply…as a cost saving measure,” Ryan said Tuesday. “We think that we could easily cut our trash bill by half.”

“My first reaction to this was ‘Wow this is great, we’re going to save a lot of money,’” said assemblyman Ron Jackson.

But after hearing discussion of mandatory garbage pickup for the community in Solid Waste Working Group meetings, he said, “It’s almost like in some ways the borough is opting out of mandatory collection and I know people wouldn’t have the option to opt out. So I’m kind of torn with that concept right now.”

Assemblyman Tresham Gregg asked how the plan would affect CWS. “We’re basically cutting them out of a substantial amount of revenue,” Gregg said. “I like the concept of saving money, but I wonder if the ramifications are going to be more difficult.”

“I don’t support this idea, mainly because we have a solid waste group working right now on a community solution,” said assembly member Heather Lende. “Essentially, pulling the borough out of that, that’s a gamechanger.”

Lende also said going forward with the plan would create an “every man for himself” mentality in the community, making it difficult for the borough to ever institute a mandatory garbage pickup service if it chose to do so in the future.

She also added that removing the borough’s business locally would cause the community’s garbage rates to go up.

Besides further fragmenting the solid waste equation, assemblyman Tom Morphet questioned whether the plan would be a net savings for the community if fees to individual consumers went up as a result. Morphet said he likes a “micro” approach to trash issues, but the borough is working toward a “macro” model.

Assembly member Margaret Friedenauer, who chairs the waste working group, said the borough would need a contingency plan sooner rather than later if CWS were to decide to no longer operate.

“I think this is a responsible thing for the borough to do,” Friedenauer said, adding that the borough could set an example for the community on “what can be done as an alternative” and “jumpstart” Haines toward a comprehensive solution.

Friedenauer said she was okay with sending the plan to the working goup for a recommendation. The working group was set to meet 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16 at the library conference room.

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