Garbage Dumping Fees In Douglas County

Background: Originally published January 24, 2007. Douglas County in 2014 is still one of the few places where people can dump their garbage for free at the local landfill/transfer station. But, it's likely this year's budget committee will approve a garbage dumping fee to be implemented in 2015. This is one of the reasons why I feel it's important for me to consider running again for Douglas County commissioner this year.

     Here we go again. Garbage Dumping Fees. There has been no public discussion of the controversial idea, but already the idea is being anonymously floated to Commissioner Marilyn Kittelman's private O & C committee, as a way Douglas County could save money from the O & C shortfall. Douglas County currently spends more than three million dollars a year on its solid waste program.
     After my father retired from the lumber mills, he worked part-time as an attendant at one of Douglas County's transfer sites. That was back in the days when private security guard agencies, not local corrections workers, staffed the landfill sites.
     When the county ceased having landfills open seven days a week 8:00a.m.-8:00p.m., people protested the cutbacks. Inevitably, when my father would arrive one morning to unlock the gate, he would find loose garbage dumped at the gate's entrance. Apparently, some disgruntled resident who had visited the landfill on one of the closed days didn't have the patience to return when the transfer site was open for business.
     If people became that agitated simply because of inconvenient hours, my father wondered what would it be like if people who live below the poverty level had to pay money to dispose of their garbage?
     Years later, I saw the answer to that question first-hand, while I was news director at KCBY-TV and covering a BLM story in Coos County. I visited sites along Seven Devils Road, a scenic byway. In some places, a person could see a panoramic view of the ocean and with barely turning one's head, see piles of garbage, debris, and appliances along the road.
     Coos County had a problem with people throwing away their garbage on pristine land, because the guilty parties did not have the money to pay for garbage disposal. Ironically, garbage dumping fees were seen as a way to generate revenue, but the county didn't have the money to enforce the law against people who littered. It was a catch-22. Is it worth it to implement a tax that will generate money, but at the same time potentially cost society just as much money in economic and environmental harm?
     I don't have the answer to that question. But I chuckle when I read about people who say there should be a garbage dumping fee, because citizens should have to pay for waste they generate. Couldn't a person use the same logic to justify a fee at the library? After all, books and internet computers aren't free.
     Is it fair for someone to drive up to Cooper Creek reservoir for free, without paying some kind of toll for the upkeep of the road and park facilities? There is no free lunch, whether it's dumping one's garbage, checking out a book at the library, or having a picnic along the sandy shore of Cooper Creek.
     But when it comes time to think of new taxes, garbage dumping fees, not library or park fees, are often put forward as a good idea. I'm not sure why garbage dumping fees are seen as a justifiable tax, when other free county services are taken for granted. Those are the kinds of difficult decisions county leaders will have to wrestle with this coming year, as they decide how to cope with the loss of O & C money.