The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor City council was on the defensive Tuesday over plans to charge a drop-off fee at the landfill and double the workforce overseeing the refuse site. Effective July 1, those bringing their own trash to the dump will for the first time pay fees _ ranging from $10 to $75, or more, depending on the volume and type of material. 'It looks to me like it's just another way to make some money off us,' taxpayer advocate Blair Sapergia told council. But Mayor George Fontaine said part of the intent is to ensure heavy users of the dump are helping to offset operating costs. 'Up until this point, you've been subsidizing construction companies, all kinds of people that are hauling in large amounts of garbage, filling up your dump, lessening its lifespan,' he told Sapergia. Mayor Fontaine said the fees will also hopefully deter non-Flin Flonners from using the dump, which is funded by city taxpayers. He said he does not personally look forward to paying drop-off fees but is 'happy' to 'charge those people that have been using it on a steady basis in huge amounts and paying nothing towards it, or paying no more than (taxpayers).' But Sapergia did not see how the fee will recoup the cost of adding to the landfill a new trailer, electricity and, effective shortly, a second worker. Coun. Bill Hanson said the second worker is needed regardless of drop-off fees since there is 'a workplace health and safety issue' around the site being staffed by a lone employee. 'No reason' Sapergia, a Hudbay union official, said he is 'fairly up to speed' on workplace health and safety rules and 'there's no reason you have to have two employees at that dump.' Mayor Fontaine said that was not the only reason for the second worker, as properly managing the dump, including ensuring different types of garbage are put in the right place, 'is probably going to take more than one person.' Tracking the volume of dump-bound vehicles for four months prior to deciding on drop-off fees, the mayor said, 'indicated that there would be a fair amount of money coming in.' Coun. Skip Martin gave another rationale for the fees: recovering some of the $10 the city must now pay the provincial government for every tonne of garbage arriving at the dump. While the city can be partially reimbursed according to the success of local recycling, the provincial charge costs the municipality. An exact figure was not available, but Municipal Administrator Mark Kolt pegged it at under $20,000 a year. Mayor Fontaine said he hoped the fees would encourage people to recycle and bring that charge down. Sapergia asked for the cost of the new trailer and electricity for the dump, but the mayor did not have that figure handy, especially with a study of the landfill not yet complete. The drop-off fees at the dump will see residents with household garbage weighing less than a ton pay $10 a vehicle. Those bringing construction-related material of less than a ton will pay $25 per vehicle. The fee for commercial material between one and five tons will be $50 a vehicle. A single-axle truck dropping off more than five tons of refuse will pay $75 per vehicle, with additional axles over two tons paying $25 a vehicle. In each case, a trailer will be charged as a second vehicle. The second dump employee will be hired by the Flin Flon and District Environment Council, which operates the landfill under a city contract.
