Monday, December 18, 2006

 

Summit fears losing dump rights

BY Bob Wang
The Canton Repository

AKRON - Concerned it may be prevented from sending trash to Stark County, Summit County’s waste authority is expected to soon challenge new rules backed by Stark commissioners.

Paul Barnett, a board member of the Summit/Akron Solid Waste Management Authority, said the rules could result in higher waste disposal costs for Summit residents to ship their waste to areas farther away than Stark. He said both counties are linked.

“You’re affecting an economic region,” said Barnett, who’s also Akron’s public works manager. “If you have a negative impact on Summit County, Stark County is affected, too.”

He spoke three days after he voted Tuesday along with other waste authority board members to file an appeal with the Ohio Environmental Review Appeals Commission.

Last month, the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne Joint Solid Waste Management District approved new rules that would prohibit landfills in the three counties from accepting waste from any other Ohio waste district with a lower recycling rate, based on a three-year-average. Though the new rule doesn’t go into effect until 2008, the Summit Waste authority wants the review commission to invalidate the new regulations.

With Summit’s landfill capacity exhausted, Barnett said all of the municipal waste from Akron, Cuyahoga Falls and Springfield Township goes to American Landfill in Sandy Township. Summit County sent more than 453,000 tons of solid waste to the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne district last year.

Summit also recycled 16.6 percent of its residential and commercial waste and 75.6 percent of its industrial waste in 2005, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said. Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne had lower rates: 10.1 percent for residential and commercial and 70.9 percent for industrial. However, Canton in 2007 is expected to start a curbside recycling program, which could raise the district’s rate past Summit County’s.

Cuyahoga County sent about 60 percent of its solid waste, about 1.4 million tons, to this district last year and recycled 30.1 percent of its residential/commercial waste and 65.2 percent of its industrial waste. Pat Holland, the executive director for the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District, said his district would try to increase its recycling and would not take legal action for now.

David Held, the executive director for the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne district, said he plans to meet with the Summit waste authority to address concerns. He said Stark residents bear the burden of landfill odors and trash flying from garbage trucks.

“If we can reduce the amounts of trash going into our landfills by improving and enhancing the recycling programs in Northeast Ohio, that will be a plus for all of us,” he said.