CLEARFIELD – On Tuesday board members from the county’s Solid Waste Authority engaged the Clearfield County Commissioners in a lengthy discussion regarding the CCSWA’s financial struggles and then requested support to sustain the current recycling program.
Lyle Millard, CCSWA chair, said at a previous commissioners’ meeting, Commissioner Mark B. McCracken commented he would like to have the CCSWA operate within its revenues. Financial documents, Millard said, showed that the authority operates on revenues of $37,000 “and some change.”
He pointed out that recycling revenues have been dropping due to market conditions. He said for example that steel bounced between 17 to 20 cents per pound when the recycling program first started but now is 3.5 cents per pound, an 80 percent drop in revenue.
Millard said the CCSWA used to make money on its electronics recycling program. However, he pointed out that there have been failures within the upper echelons of the market, and the CCSWA didn’t receive any bids from electronics vendors. He presented the commissioners with a photograph of the electronics drop-off site from Oct. 16 and the colossal of old television sets, which has grown significantly since the date of the photograph.
While the CCSWA will not have a contracted vendor, it will close its electronics drop-off site effective Oct. 31, according to a previously published press release from the authority. Millard said the CCSWA does plan to seek another round of bids.
“This is a problem. It’s not on Clearfield County or the Solid Waste Authority. It’s a market problem,” he said. “We’re not getting the revenues we used to get. We have a problem on our hands.”
According to Millard, a consultant advised the CCSWA to reduce the number of recycling bins it has throughout the county. The consultant also advised the authority to centralize its recycling drop-off to a site in Clearfield.
However, he said this would require space for five or six bins, and there isn’t enough room. He also believed the hours for the site’s operation were going to be “sporadic,” and not fit into the average person’s schedule.
Plus, he didn’t believe residents from Mahaffey and Irvona would drive to Clearfield to drop off their recyclables. He said a centralized recycling drop-off site would not be fair to the outlying communities, and it wasn’t the solution.
Millard said that last year the CCSWA spent approximately $40,000 emptying bins throughout the county. He said with an expected 25 percent drop in participation with centralization, the authority would still spend $30,000 annually to empty bins and transport recyclables to Brockway.
“We wouldn’t be saving much by doing it. The $10,000 we would be saving isn’t worth the burden that we’d be putting on the people who would be bringing their recyclables into Clearfield,” he said.
Millard said the CCSWA sent surveys to officials in the county’s 40 municipalities. The surveys, he said, asked officials to give consideration to participating in the authority’s illegal dumping program to support the enforcement officer for $500 and to sponsoring recycling bins in their communities.
Of the 40 municipalities, he said only 13 were willing to contribute $500 to participate in and support the illegal dumping enforcement program. He said none of them were willing to sponsor a bin in their community, which was expected due to it being very costly.
Millard said the CCSWA board didn’t believe it would be fair to put the financial burden to maintain the recycling program on the municipalities. He said the board also desired to keep the authority’s recycling program “as is.”
Because Act 101 legislation wasn’t corrected, he said it’s been 10 years since the CCSWA has had any flow of income. At the same time, he said the authority still needs to have an illegal dumping enforcement officer and a recycling program.
Millard said if the CCSWA centralized its recycling program, the outlying communities in Clearfield County would become “dumping grounds,” especially if there wasn’t an enforcement officer. He said dump sites would come into existence anywhere someone found a bank to throw their garbage over.
He asked the commissioners to “step up to the plate and show some leadership” to do what the legislation has failed to do all along. He said that the CCSWA’s expenses were more than $75,000 last year, and its revenues are dying.
Commissioner Joan Robinson-McMillen, chair, reminded Millard that while recycling is a mandated program, it is the responsibility of the municipalities. She said that the commissioners were still willing to review the CCSWA budget to see if there were any unnecessary expenses to cut.
She also pointed out that it was budget time for the commissioners. “It is more than tight. It’s jam-packed full of unfunded mandates from the state that we have to fund or things won’t run,” she said.
“We’re still waiting for our controller to crunch the numbers for our wish list budget. Then, we will begin to trim away.” Robinson-McMillen added that the commissioners will keep the CCSWA posted on their budget situation.
McCracken said it was frustrating because the waste industry didn’t like to pay the tipping fee, and it was taken away from counties. He said the waste industry has amped its lobbying and campaign support with state lawmakers, and the issues with Act 101 haven’t been corrected as a result.
Solicitor Kim Kesner defended the commissioners, saying the county wasn’t mandated to maintain the recycling program. Instead, he said it was a mandate put on local governments.
“But there has always been a lack of leadership in rural Pennsylvania,” he said. “Often if the county doesn’t do something, it doesn’t get done. The county stepped up, provided an employee [to the CCSWA] and support.”
He said it wasn’t the commissioners’ legal responsibility to provide an enforcement officer for the illegal dumping program and to help sustain the recycling program. He said the county developed the recycling program, and so long as there was a stream of funding, it was successful.
Kesner said now everyone wanted the county to “do the right thing.” “It’s not as simple as the good guys versus the bad guys. It’s a complex problem,” he said. “It’s not as simple as opening up the county’s general fund like there is some money to use for just anything.”
Katherine Forcey, CCSWA board member, said while local municipalities have not agreed to financially support the authority’s recycling programs, their officials have shown interest and spoken out at meetings.
In 1970, Forcey said she drove all over the county to survey municipal dumps. She said now the CCSWA has a paid employee to do so and to try to get areas cleaned up. Forcey said if the authority would ever lose its enforcement officer, the county would look like it did in the 1970’s again when people dumped garbage in their backyards.
“It’s a big problem,” Forcey said. She said that the commissioners have wanted to improve the county’s economy. However, Forcey argued businesses aren’t going to be interested in relocating to Clearfield County if it is disgustingly dirty with garbage all over.
She added, “People won’t come from Mahaffey to put their garbage in a dumpster in Clearfield. They will throw it in their backyards. People will only do more burning and more tossing over the bank.”
Forcey asked the commissioners to put the CCSWA on their budget’s “wish list” for consideration of funding for the upcoming year. “Our income is dying, and we can’t maintain a program on our current income,” she said.
She believed a lot of Clearfield County residents would be “disturbed” if they didn’t have opportunities to recycle in their communities. She said people cared about the program, and asked the commissioners to “give one last push.”
Robinson-McMillen asked Forcey to send these people who were interested in the recycling issue to their local municipal leaders to ask them to do their fiduciary responsibility and to put it in their budget.
Kesner said local government officials say they don’t have the money to support programs, and it comes back to the county. He questioned whether the county offering financial support would really result in long-term sustainability of the CCSWA recycling program.
“Is it really long-term sustainability or would it be merely plugging the hole out of the county’s general fund when it is the legal prerogative of a mandate on municipalities?” Kesner asked.
As well, Kesner maintained it was the wrong approach to finance the CCSWA’s recycling programs with tax money. He said it doesn’t create a disincentive to putting garbage in landfills.
McCracken said the commissioners are committed to working with the CCSWA and trying to keep the recycling program going. Robinson-McMillen said they will look at the authority’s request but noted it hasn’t been an easy budget time without state funding for the past five months.
McCracken called attention to the fact the county had to spend $263,000 to defend its solid waste plan, which was challenged by Waste Management. He said Waste Management decided “oh never mind mid-stream” and stopped pursuit of its challenge.
“It bothers me that Waste Management can play that game,” he said. “…And, it cost the county that much money.” Commissioner Joan A. Sobel encouraged the CCSWA board members to stay passionate, and to take it to the local municipalities and state representatives.