FORT SMITH -- The sanitation department director Tuesday recommended that city directors nearly double the landfill rates for companies that haul trash from outside Fort Smith.
Baridi Nkokheli told directors that he believes commercial trash haulers serving customers outside Fort Smith should pay $63.87 per ton instead of the current charge of $34.43 per ton.
He proposed that residents living outside Fort Smith who want to dump trash in the city's landfill pay $42.40 per ton.
Sanitation rates for Fort Smith residents would not change, Nkokheli said.
Nkokheli said revenue projections from the proposed increase have not been calculated, but he told directors he would try to get those figures this week.
Nkokheli said Fort Smith residents paid for the landfill, but outside haulers are profiting from it. The rates those haulers are paying are insufficient, he said.
"The mere fact that outside uses are reaping the benefits and cost benefit of disposing waste here without paying the price for that advantage leaves the citizens having to supplement and subsidize the other six counties" from which Fort Smith receives trash, he said.
The rates he proposed also were more reflective of the industry standard in Arkansas, he said.
The Echo Vista Landfill in Tontitown that serves Northwest Arkansas charges about $54 a ton, he said. The Two Pine Landfill that serves the Jacksonville area charges about $51 per ton.
"I know of no one paying that disposal rate," Waste Management spokesman for Arkansas George Wheatley said of Nkokheli's proposal. Waste Management is one of the largest third-party trash haulers to the landfill.
He said he thought the commercial rate Nkokheli recommended was about $20 per ton too high. He said larger haulers who take greater volumes of waste to the landfill should get a more favorable rate than those who haul in smaller amounts.
Jim Goodman, manager of Altes Sanitation in Fort Smith, another of the Fort Smith landfill's larger haulers, called the proposed rate increase ridiculous.
"That would put all the regional customers out of business," he said. "You can't double their rates."
If Nkokheli says the landfill is losing money, Goodman said, it's because the city dumps its trash in the landfill for free. The city also closes the landfill on too many holidays, while commercial haulers such as Altes have to haul trash every day, he said.
Nkokheli said the city trash trucks hauling waste to the landfill pay the $34.43 rate, as other haulers do.
Nkokheli said the city's 1,000-acre landfill is estimated to take in 251,000 tons of trash this year. The landfill is expected to be used into the 22nd century, he said.
Metro on 11/13/2015