Rural Oregon residents say plan to close garbage transfer stations could lead to illegal dumping

Hundreds of residents in rural areas of Lane County, Oregon (Wikipedia map) have expressed concern that a county proposal to save money by closing rural transfer stations will inconvenience rural residents and lead to an increase in illegal dumping, Saul Hubbard reports for The Register-Guard. The Lane County Board of Commissioners proposed closing eight of the counties 16 garbage transfer stations in an attempt to trim $1.5 million in annual costs from the county’s waste management system. The stations are where rural residents who don’t have doorstep garbage service take their trash and recyclables.

Several commissioners responded Tuesday to public complaints by stressing that the transfer stations need to remain open, Hubbard writes. Instead of closing the stations, they have suggested raising "garbage tipping and recycling rates at all 16 transfer stations, including the heavily used Glenwood Central Receiving Station, while holding steady the rates at the county’s Short Mountain landfill, where many commercial haulers take trash."

"That strategy essentially would require ­anyone who uses a transfer station to help cover the extra cost of keeping all 16 stations open," Hubbard writes. "County staff calculated that rates at all 16 transfer stations would have to increase by 11.3 percent, or an extra $8.64 per ton, to generate $500,000 in new annual revenue."