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BRIGHAM CITY, Utah (AP) -- Box Elder County is moving to open a regional landfill that could reduce costs for five counties and undercut a private company that handles waste for Weber County.
"We have no problem with them building a landfill," said Kory Coleman, a district manager for Phoenix-based Allied Waste Services, which runs Weber County's landfill. "We do have a problem with them eliminating competition."
Coleman is objecting to any agreement that directs all garbage to the regional landfill, leaving Allied without any business in northern Utah.
Allied has a friend in Sen. Dan Eastman, R-Bountiful, who is offering legislation that would make it illegal for counties to pass laws governing the flow of waste.
Allied gave nearly $4,000 in campaign contributions to the Utah Republican Party and to Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, during his campaign this year because they support competition in the disposal business, the Standard-Examiner of Ogden reported Wednesday.
Davis, Morgan, Weber, Cache and Box Elder counties are looking into opening the regional landfill just north of Brigham City on land owned by Box Elder County.
Box Elder County commissioners planned to tour the barren patch of land Thursday near Corinne that has become a leading candidate for the Little Mountain regional dump.
The county would take a fee of $1.50 a ton of garbage as compensation -- $140 million over the 80-year life of the landfill, a consultant estimated.
The landfill also could cut costs for Box Elder residents, who pay upward of $30 a ton for disposal at the county dump. The regional landfill could operate on fees of $10 a ton or less, said Brett Mickelson, an engineering consultant at Intermountain Geo-Environmental Services.
"As the volume goes up, the cost per ton goes down because of the economy of scale," Mickelson said. "With what your citizens are being charged right now, this represents a huge savings."
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Information from: Standard-Examiner
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
