Nogales and Santa Cruz County have not forged a landfill contract and the losers are city taxpayers as well as the local economy.

Taxpayers in Nogales are paying an additional $100,000 a year to have Tucson Recycling and Waste Management truck the trash to a landfill 184 miles away. As well, the $675,000 in tipping fees that used to be collected by the county is now bleeding to Maricopa County.

Meetings at the city/county staff level earlier this year bore no fruit. Then, in a June 10 letter to his counterpart at the city, County Manager Greg Lucero said that in lieu of a long-range contract, “we must proceed with the implementation of our solid waste management plan without the city.”

No closed door

He did not close the door to future discussions. “Should the city develop a long-range plan it would like us to consider, we would be more than happy to review it,” he said.

Lucero told City Manager Jaime Fontes that in the meantime, “if the city chooses to utilize the landfill, the current fee of $37 per ton will remain in place until adjustments warrant an increase to cover operational expenses and the costs associated with closure and post closure.”

Notification

The county notified the city in March that the tipping fee was $37 per ton vs. $32 per ton the city had been paying under an intergovernmental agreement that expired in 2006. As well, county officials claimed they were owed back-fees of more than $218,000.

Fees

The move came after the county had to pay $400,000 in development fees for a road from North Grand Avenue to the new jail and courthouse complex currently under construction. The fees doubled the amount that was budgeted by the county.

City officials said the fee was not negotiable and refused to pay any claims for landfill fees that are supposedly in arrears.

It’s not about payback, Lucero said in an interview. It’s about establishing a long-term plan for the landfill.

Carl Moyer, the county’s solid waste manager, said that Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have stringent requirements for shutting down landfills and subsequent environmental monitoring for up to 30 years.

Planning

“We have to plan for all that with or without the city,” he said.

The 50 or so tons of trash trucked in from Nogales daily accounted for about 35 percent of the refuse dumped at the landfill before Tucson Recycling began taking it to Butterfield Station in Maricopa County.

In addition, Moyer has seen a 20 percent reduction in refuse as a result of the economic slump, he said.

Estimation

Prior to these developments, it was estimated that the capacity of the landfill would max out and the facility be closed in 2017. Closing costs were estimated at $1.7 million with monitoring pegged at between $100,000 and $120,000 for 30 years.

The state is reviewing an application by the county that would allow it to prolong the life of the landfill by up to five additional years by increasing the height of the facility by about 28 feet.

Percentages

Moyer said that 30 cents out of each dollar generated at the landfill is set aside to build up funds for closure and monitoring and to build up about $2 million toward funding “the next alternative” whether it be a new landfill or other program to discard refuse.

Nogales must establish its own long-range plans. But more immediately, Deputy City Manager John E. Kissinger said that negotiations are under way with Tucson Recycling. Since 2005, the company has done business locally under the name Nogales Recycling. Their contract is up in 2010.

The company charges the city not $37 per ton to process city trash, but $58 per ton.

Contract

Under the current contract, the county’s $5 increase was passed on directly to the city even though Tucson Recycling takes the trash elsewhere. Also, it can raise its rates every time there is an adjustment in the Consumer Price Index, or CPI.

Taking a look

The latter is “one of the things we’re taking a look at for the new contract,” Kissinger said.

As well, discussions will take place about such things as the weight of the refuse actually deposited at the landfill. For example, water mixed in with the refuse picked up at the transfer station in Nogales evaporates or leaks out before it arrives in the truck at the landfill. Nogales’ invoice should reflect that “shrinkage,” Kissinger said.

He holds out hope that a pact can be struck with the county to lessen the hit on city coffers, Kissinger said.