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While Gov. Jim Doyle signed the 2009-2011 biennial budget amid much fanfare for its timely completion, one thing not getting much attention is the huge increase in fees paid to landfills. The bill more than doubles the current fee for bringing refuse to landfills, known as the tipping fees. Effective July 1, the fee went from $5.89 per ton of waste to $10.30 per ton. The rate goes up again in October, to $13 per ton. It’s a safe bet the increase was not included in anyone’s 2009 budget.
Depending how much waste is converted to energy at the Xcel waste incinerator and how much gets taken to the landfill, residents, businesses and municipalities are going to get dumped on.
The Doyle administration has gotten heat in the past because Wisconsin’s tipping fees were the lowest in the upper Midwest, leading to neighboring states bringing their trash here, but the new fees seem to hurt everyone.
Theresa Schnitzler, West Salem village administrator, said the village uses Waste Management to provide large-article pickup service to residents. The new rates will increase West Salem’s bills from about $80 per month to $182 per month, or 126 percent, based on the monthly usage of 14 tons experienced in May 2009.
Schnitzler said the tonnage has gotten better in recent years because the village no longer picks up e-waste and material salvagers have significantly lightened the loads.
“But it’s going to have an impact due to large-article pickup,” Schnitzler said. She speculated that maybe the village would stop providing the service as a response.
It won’t matter, because whoever takes materials to the landfills that are unacceptable to Xcel will have to pay.
“Residential will not see it as much as commercial users because they have more unacceptable material,” said Larry Hougom, vice president of Hilltopper Refuse and Recycling in Onalaska. Hougom said Hilltopper has about nine or 10 contracts with municipalities and many more commercial accounts.
Hilltopper has a contract with the village of Holmen and Hougom said the village would probably pay about an extra $720 a year. According to Village President Nancy Proctor, the additional fees were not anticipated and are not in the 2009 budget.
The construction industry will be hit hard because most of the unusable building materials end up in the landfill.
“It’s just another form of tax,” said Vicki Markussen, executive director of the La Crosse Area Builder’s Association. “If a contractor has to pay for it, he’s passing it on to the homeowners or homebuyers.”
Markussen said even homeowners who do their own remodeling projects and take items to the landfill will have to pay. “Anybody doing a project is going to be paying more to dump refuse,” she said.
Onalaska Mayor Mike Giese said the majority of what is taken to the landfill is the dirt from city street sweeping activities. The landfill uses the dirt as capping material and therefore it is exempt from the tipping fee.
However, the city does bring refuse material to the landfill and the additional costs will add about another $1,000 to fees, according to Giese.
While he said that doesn’t sound like much, the little bit here and the little bit there is adding up to a scary 2010 budget, especially since revenues are shrinking.
Hougom recommended residents, businesses and contractors use as much combustible material as possible so that it can be disposed of at the Xcel Energy incinerator. Those tipping fees are exempt from the new law.
The National Solid Waste Management Association is upset because none of the $49 million a year the state hopes to raise will go toward increased recycling or improving the way waste is managed.
“The taxes will cost local governments $15-20 million a year that won’t be reimbursed by the state,” said Jason Johns, a lobbyist for the NSWMA.
According to the NSWMA, the new funds will go toward paying for agricultural grants, state debt and other spending unrelated to landfills. The new budget scales back state grants to local governments for their recycling efforts.
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