Fillmore City Council members voted last week to spend $50,000 on a used scale for the municipality’s landfill.
The scale will be used to weigh waste coming into the facility, part of an agreement with Millard County, the landfill’s operator.
Charges for dumping at the landfill will be based on weight once the scale is in place and not on cubic yards per waste as previously done.
The scale is only one of a number of changes scheduled to take place in Fillmore.
Transfer stations around Fillmore are expected to be moved to the landfill, dumpsters placed inside the facility’s gates and only available during operating hours—Monday, Friday and Saturday between 1:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.
Transfer stations across the county are typically available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“They are going to charge everybody who goes through the gate,” Mayor Mike Holt told residents during a public hearing last Tuesday. “To keep the landfill open, we have an agreement with the county to put scales in up here. So the people who go use it will get weighed in and weighed out and they’ll get charged for the weight they bring in.”
Fillmore’s landfill is a Class C facility. Waste deposited there generally is construction waste or lawn and tree clippings. A flesh pit is also located on site.
The mayor added that in lieu of weighing the garbage coming into the landfill, the city could have beenforced to close the facility, and customers would have had to travel across the county to near Delta to dump their excess garbage.
City officials and county leaders have wrangled over the future of the city’s landfill for about six years now.
County officials previously sought a large payment from Fillmore City in order to keep operating the facility, but city officials pushed back. One sticking point was the justification the county was using to place a dollar figure on what it believed the city should pay—for example, plenty of non-Fillmore residents likely use the landfill and so city officials balked at paying for use from outsiders. The county’s record-keeping on that matter was less than informative. So the county and city agreed to put in scales and charge all users, keeping records to both show who is using the facility and what is being dumped.
Asked during the public hearing how much the landfill will charge by weight, Holt said the city is waiting to hear from county officials what those fees will be.
“The county is supposed to be putting all those rate schedules in place,” Holt said.
One member of the public asked whether this meant residents would no longer be charged a landfill fee on their utility bills. Holt said that charge would remain because it is only for household waste. In Fillmore, the city forces residents and businesses to sign-up for garbage collection, which isn’t the case in Delta and other parts of the county.
Asked where the money will be going once the new landfill rates are in place, Councilman Dennis Alldredge said funds generated by the landfill would be placed in a separate county fund benefiting just Fillmore’s facility.
“It’s supposed to go into a fund that helps take care of this landfill,” he said.
Councilman Curt Hare said the changes are all part of an agreement the city recently reached with the county. He said the city was warned last year the county was prepared to close the landfill.
“Millard County has been consistently threatening to shut down the landfill above Fillmore City,” he said, adding that at one point last year a letter from the county warned a 60-day closure notice was imminent. “This has been a constant irritant for all of us. Even before I was on the council.”
Hare said even though residents will see higher rates if they use the landfill, it is worth it to keep it open.
“It will cost us a little more, unfortunately. But where it was heading was a complete shutdown and closure of this landfill. It would have been a real detriment to the community,” he said.
Holt and Alldredge said the county landfill near Delta will also be putting in scales and begin weighing garbage.
Asked whether it wasn’t prudent for the city to take over the landfill operations, Holt said it would cost Fillmore millions of dollars to operate the landfill by itself.
“It wasn’t making any money over here. It wasn’t making any money so they were going to close it down and focus on the one over there (in Delta),” Holt said.
