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Rate hikes enacted at McMinn County landfill

DEWEY MORGAN

Editor

Customers at the McMinn County landfill will start seeing slightly higher rates soon after a vote by the McMinn County Commission.

During last week’s McMinn County Solid Waste Committee meeting, McMinn County Mayor John Gentry proposed rate hikes of $1 for Class 1-3 across the scale waste and $4 for the tipping fee, which is the per ton rate for dump trucks.

That makes the rate for loads across the scale at less than 250 pounds increase from $4 to $5; the per ton tipping fee rise from $24 to $28; and the Class III bulk industrial wastes from $8 per cubic yard to $10 per cubic yard.

The rate increases passed both the solid waste committee and the entire commission unanimously and

Gentry said the new rates will go into effect on Sept. 1.

“Inflation’s hit the landfill as hard or harder than any other sector of the economy,” he said. “We don’t cover our own costs at our landfill with our tipping fee.” Even with the rate hikes, Gentry argued that the landfill remains a good deal with signifi cantly less waiting time than others in the area.

“We’re still by far the lowest (rates) around,” he said. “We offer a great service.”

He noted that other city and county landfills get subsidized through property tax rates, but that no longer happens in McMinn County.

“A lot of those other communities build a lot of that subsidy into their property tax rate — we do not,” he said. “My first year we gave $300,000 a year out of property tax to the landfill to subsidize it and keep the rates lower.”

In order to cover the various costs associated with having a landfi ll, Gentry said there would have to be “1,000 tons a day” coming in to the landfi ll. Currently, he estimated the daily tonnage to be between 75 and 125 per day.

“If we went up to what it costs us, you’d be at $100 per ton,” he noted.

When asked by committee members if they should consider a bigger hike than proposed, Gentry said he didn’t favor that now.

“I’d rather do this for a year,” he said. “You get a fine line between our general folks that come across versus who quit coming at all.”

He added that the McMinn County landfi ll being available for regular household trash is important to the region as well.

“We do help keep the overall rate structure lower throughout Southeast Tennessee because we’re still a viable Class 1,” he said. “We never like doing it (rate hikes), but it’s a fee based system.”

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