ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 15, 1996 TAG: 9611150027
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
The New River Resource Authority has approved taking in the Montgomery Regional Solid Waste Authority. The addition of the Montgomery authority - a major step forward in regional cooperation - must still be approved individually by Radford City Council, the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors and Dublin Town Council before it becomes official.
The resource authority also reduced its fees for disposing of garbage from $57.50 to $50 per ton beginning in January. Weight fees will also be eliminated at that time for regular and large tires. All other fees remain the same.
The resource authority's executive director, Charles Maus, said reserve funds of about $300,000 for closing the Ingles Mountain landfill and an operational reserve allow the reduction in fees. He said further reduction may be possible if the membership expansion occurs.
The Montgomery group, which includes Montgomery County, Virginia Tech and the towns of Christiansburg and Blacksburg, formally approved joining the NRRA last week. The NRRA, meeting in Pulaski, voted its acceptance of the agreement Wednesday night, but all member localities must hold public hearings and agree to the necessary charter changes.
The Montgomery members will pay a 53 percent proportional share of expenses incurred by the existing NRRA members, amounting to $213,419. Tipping fees from the various localities will cover disposal expenses after that.
The NRRA representatives will increase from seven to nine, with three each from Montgomery County, Pulaski County and Radford. The existing representation is two Radford members and five from Pulaski County, including its towns.
The Montgomery localities will have full membership rights in the NRRA except for using its Ingles Mountain landfill in Radford, which will be closed after it reaches its capacity next month. It will be replaced with a new 350-acre landfill south of Cloyds Mountain in Pulaski County.
Even with the Montgomery localities more than doubling the amount of waste that will go into the new landfill, Maus said, it should last more than 100 years. The Montgomery localities will be required to start using the new landfill and paying tipping fees by July 1998, by which time its own Mid-County Landfill off U.S. 460 just outside Christiansburg is expected to be full.
In turn, the NRRA will be able to use a Montgomery recycling center with a cost limit of not more than 55 percent of the tipping fee cost.
Any displaced Montgomery employees will get hiring preferences by the NRRA through the end of 1998.
"They are not against the wall," Maus said. "They could expand their landfill They could look elsewhere for alternatives." Advantages of adding them to the NRRA include a larger operating base and a lowering of disposal costs generally because of economies of scale, he said, plus promoting regional cooperation.
Both Montgomery and Giles counties indicated an interest in joining the NRRA as far back as 1993. They found state law banned one authority joining another, and the General Assembly had to approve an exemption last year to allow it.
Maus said Giles was put on hold until the Montgomery process sets a model for the process of joining.
Radford Mayor Thomas Starnes, Pulaski Supervisor Jerry White and NRRA attorney John Spiers have been negotiating the agreement with the Montgomery authority for the past eight months.
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