PORT ANGELES — The City Council has backed a rate reduction for solid waste disposal at the Port Angeles Regional Transfer Station.
Council members voted 5-0 Tuesday to select one of two options for 2018 that includes a 5 percent increase for the disposal of biosolids, reducing other solid waste rates for customers as of Jan. 1.
Both options would have had the same impact on revenue to the city. Both would have lowered the cost to customers by nearly $25 per ton beginning Jan. 1.
“I feel that this is a rather historic moment,” acting Mayor Cherie Kidd said of the rate reduction.
The council will consider final approval of the solid waste transfer station rate ordinance at its Oct. 17 meeting.
The solid waste rate reduction comes two months after the council eliminated a solid waste collections surcharge for city utility customers.
“Unlike solid waste collections, this is something that doesn’t just impact the city of Port Angeles,” City Manager Dan McKeen said in an hour-long council meeting Tuesday.
“This is the regional transfer station that serves the majority of the county. The reduction will be a benefit throughout the county.”
If the transfer station rate ordinance is approved, the pre-taxed, per-ton cost for 2018 will be lowered from a scheduled $173.16 to $148.17, a $24.99 difference.
A recent cost of service analysis showed that solid waste volumes had risen beyond expectations in recent years, city officials said in a staff memo.
Higher volumes allow the city to lower the per-ton cost, officials said.
“In this case, we’ll present an option for 2018 and then come back a year from now,” senior accountant/revenue officer Glen Goodworth told the council in a staff report.
“We’ll evaluate how we’re doing and put something together for 2019.”
In 2014, the city established solid waste transfer station rates for 2015-19 to help finance the $16.5 million bluff stabilization project at the transfer station.
After the recent cost of service analysis, the city’s Utility Advisory Committee and staff agreed that a reduction was necessary.
City Councilwoman Sissi Bruch, who serves on the utility subcommittee, suggested that the council pick the option for the disposal of treated sewage sludge “to get away from having one utility subsidize another utility.”
“Yes, it means that everybody is going to have to pay 7 cents more for their sewer rate,” Bruch said.
“But that’s fair to the transfer station folks because right now they are subsidizing this, and I don’t think it’s fair that the transfer [station] folks are subsidizing the sewer.”
Utility Advisory Committee Vice Chairman Lee Whetham agreed.
“I, too, have long supported the non-subsidization of other utilities, so I think this is a great idea,” Whetham said.
McKeen told the council that the solid waste transfer station rate reduction will be the first in a series of rate changes that include main utilities such as electric and water.
“It’s pretty much mostly good news, and you don’t get to say that very often,” McKeen said.
“In spite of things like the BPA [Bonneville Power Administration] substantial increase in the electric rate, we’re still able to come forward with something that I think you’ll be pleased with.”
”But the real good news is the collaboration between the departments in working on the utilities,” McKeen added.
”There’s been a lot more collaboration is looking at the utility rates and a lot of different eyes looking at utility rates and discussing things than we’ve ever have in the past, and that’s a good thing for everybody.”
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsula dailynews.com.
