Trash Management Suffers During Legal Dispute, Officials Say

Trash management for Washington and Benton counties is suffering because of a continuing lawsuit between the two groups in charge, officials said this week.

The directors of the Boston Mountain and Benton County solid waste districts said recycling, outreach and other programs are working with strained budgets. They both have had to delay hiring more people, they said.

Web Watch

For more information on Boston Mountain and Benton County waste districts, including where recycling and other waste can be taken and who handles trash in your area, visit:

• Benton County: www.bcswd.com

• Boston Mountain: www.bmswd.com

"We're kind of on a shoestring budget," said Robyn Reed, Boston Mountain director, echoing her Benton County counterpart. "It's a serious hardship."

The districts license trash collectors within their areas, accept computer and recyclable waste and work to prevent illegal dumping.

The culprit for their troubles is a lawsuit over the hundreds of thousands of dollars residents and garbage companies pay to dump trash at the Eco Vista Landfill near Tontitown. Everyone who takes trash pays $1.50 per ton.

About $200,000 per year of that money is in limbo, because the waste districts disagree on how much of it each of them should get.

Boston Mountain's board said it should get half the money Benton County residents pay, because the landfill is in the Boston Mountain district. Benton County's district said it should keep all of the fees, because they come from its residents.

The issue came to a head in 2011, when Maylon Rice, then Boston Mountain's director, apparently ignored his board's instructions and signed a contract with Benton County giving it all of the fee.

The Boston board fired Rice and tried to void the contract last year. Benton County then sued in Benton County Circuit Court for the money.

That court ruled for Benton County in February, but Boston Mountain is appealing to the Arkansas Court of Appeals, meaning the fight isn't over yet. Waste Management, which manages the Tontitown landfill, is holding on to the relevant money in the meantime.

"We're disappointed that we're having to go this route, obviously," said Wendy Cravens, Benton County director. "We're hoping we'll prevail."

Cravens oversees seven staff members. She can't raise that number because the missing money is about one-fourth of her budget, she said.

She hoped to add three positions to the county's recycling program, which accepts plastic, paper and steel at Bella Vista, Rogers, Gravette and elsewhere. A fourth position, likely for outreach, is going unfilled. And recycling grants are being used for basic operation instead of growing programs.

"We're basically asking all of our staff members to do more for the same pay," Cravens said. "(Boston Mountain) is getting full funding from their citizens. But now they're also asking to take half of the fees Benton County citizens pay."

It's largely the same at Boston Mountain, said Reed, who oversees 14 employees and a $1.2 million budget. Two or three positions for environmental enforcement and other concerns need to be filled but can't be, she said.

"We don't have any reserves anymore," Reed added, meaning she has no buffer of money if large equipment breaks down.

NW News on 05/18/2014

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