COMMENTARY
For the past several years I have questioned the Board of Supervisors
each and every time they have renewed a contract with Marborg
for trash service in the Cuyama Valley. Don’t
get me wrong, Marborg has a great reputation in our
community and in the industry. I am not questioning the work the company
does or the rate it charges. It is the logistics of the operation that has me
baffled.
Marborg is a trash hauler in the South County.
The company sends a truck to the Cuyama
Valley on a regular basis and hauls
the trash to the county’s Tajiguas Landfill located
several miles west of Goleta. What
I have asked each and every year are two questions pertaining to this
operation.
First, why doesn’t the county have Marborg
dump the trash at a landfill or transfer station closer to Cuyama?, thus eliminating the cost of hauling the trash all the
way to Tajiguas. The second question I ask is, why are North
County ratepayers alone
underwriting the entire cost of the operation?
The fact is there are at least three disposal sites closer to Cuyama than the Tajiguas
landfill. There is a landfill in Taft, a transfer station in Nipomo and a
landfill in Santa Maria. Each
and every year, county staff would defend the program
in the following manner. They would dismiss the Taft and Nipomo options due to
their concern about dumping trash outside of our county, citing the fear that
our county could somehow get dragged into issues involving closure of the
landfills utilized by these operators. They also dismiss the Nipomo and Santa Maria landfills as
charging more per ton than does the county landfill. These arguments never
held sway with me because with respect to closure concerns, the county does not
own the Santa Maria
landfill, yet it dumps trash there. With respect to cost comparisons, the
difference in the fee to dump was minimal compared to the cost of hauling the
trash from one end of the county to the other.
Staff never did come up with a good rationale as to why they
collectively charge all North
County ratepayers a
cumulative extra $200,000 per year to subsidize the cost of the Cuyama contract. They simply would repeat the dilemma
they are in with respect to how the Cuyama rates are
set. In a nutshell, most county residents pay between $30 and $40 per month for
trash service. Cuyama residents have a locked in fee
of $77 per year! And that rate can’t be changed without a vote of the
people! I have always questioned why ratepayers are forced to subsidize Cuyama trash service versus the Board of Supervisors taking
the money out of the General Fund?
Well, this is going to be the last year I raise a stink over this
issue. That is because I finally received an answer to the questions I
have been posing. The sad fact is I didn’t get the answer from county
staff or a county supervisor. County staff wasn’t talking and the Board
of Supervisors were in the dark. I got the answer
I was looking for from Marborg. I was
enlightened to the fact that the costs of the program cited during all these
years I have been complaining did not include the $71,000 cost of disposal at Tajiguas. That is because nobody is directly being charged
for the disposal costs. Now, I know the real reason it is cheaper for the
county to haul the trash all the way there. And, since the entire operation at Tajiguas is paid for by South County
ratepayers, in essence, a portion of the costs are being spread countywide.
Andy Caldwell is the Executive Director of COLAB and a 39-year resident
of the Central Coast. Contact information is available
at the COLAB website at www.colabsbc.org
