Critics of the current garbage collection system are pressuring Whatcom County Council to review the ordinance establishing mandatory garbage collection for all properties, and they have the support of at least two council members.
“Point Roberts, you heard it a year ago when we said we would bring it back and look at the impacts and reassess,” Tyler Byrd told half a dozen Point Roberts residents attending the November 19 county council meeting. “Did it happen? No.”
Allison Calder, president of the Point Roberts Voters’ Association whose board has voted unanimously to request the review, said she was looking forward to further discussion of the matter when the council, public works and health committee meets on Tuesday, December 3, chaired by Barbara Brenner who has voiced her support for revisiting the mandatory collection ordinance.
Several other speakers echoed a wish to see the minimum service level reduced from 26 pickups of a 32-gallon can to 12 pickups of a 20-gallon can. “There is no incentive to reduce waste,” said Ken Calder. He said customers in the rest of the county, where curbside collection is not mandatory, have the option to choose a service level as low as one 20-gallon can per month.
Both the Washington Utilities and Transportation (WUTC) and staff with the county health department, which oversees solid waste collection, have recently completed their reviews of the curbside collection system, which was established as a mandatory service for all property owners in Point Roberts by county council action in June 2018 and went into effect January 2019.
The WUTC does not propose any changes in the tariff for Cando Recycling and Disposal (Cando), which operated the curbside collection system and the transfer station (which the WUTC does not regulate.) There will be another compliance review in 2020 that will look at financial information from a full year for the new system, which added an additional 1,600 customers to Cando’s curbed collection system.
“The goals of the new program requirements were to necessarily increase viability of service provision, in an area with unique challenges, while supporting higher levels of service at cost effective rates, and reducing illegal dumping,” wrote Jeff Hegedus with the county health department in an October 21 letter.
“Implementation is proceeding very well. The minimum level of service, combined with the variable option (…), appears to have been well embraced” the letter continued.
Cando owner David Gellatly encouraged county council members to carefully review his company’s data and the reviews by the health department and the WUTC before taking action that could destabilize the system and impact rates.
Gellatly said he had made significant investment in infrastructure to serve a larger customer base since the adoption of the mandatory collection ordinance.
If a lower minimum service level were approved, “the rates would need to be adjusted so I could recover my investment,” he said, which would be part of the next WUTC compliance review.
Overall, Gellatly said he believes 80 percent of his customers are satisfied with the current minimum service level.
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