Grant County to keep drop boxes open

EPHRATA — The Grant County commissioners plan to keep at least some garbage drop boxes open.

Roughly 40 people showed up at a public hearing last week about a suggested closure of the drop boxes. The boxes are in Mattawa, George, Coulee City, O’Sullivan, Wilson Creek, Warden, Royal City, Beverly and Hartline.

Commissioner Cindy Carter said she plans to bring people’s suggestions to the Solid Waste Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday.

“I will take all my notes and condense them and see where we can make some changes. For instance there’s one in Mattawa and one in Beverly, they’re only six miles apart, so we might try consolidating them,” she said.

The suggestion for closing the drop boxes came from Grant County’s Public Works Department and the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, because the cost of running them exceeds the revenue from the boxes. Presently people are charged $9 per cubic yard for visiting a garbage drop box with a minimum charge of $5.25.

This generated $117,002 in revenue, and it cost the county $215,907 to operate in 2008, according to county documents. Each of the boxes lost money for the past three years.

“Most of the money we spend is on labor, just keeping those open,” Carter said. “They’re open two to three days a week.”

Many of the people speaking at the meeting were concerned about bringing their trash from places such as Beverly to Ephrata.

“In the Beverly and Schwana area, they don’t have year round (trash) pickup. They’re just seasonal visitors,” Carter said. “Up north … the big concern is where is the garbage going to go.”

People were concerned if the drop boxes disappeared, garbage along the side of the road would increase as well.

Carter said the county is trying to find a solution such as consolidating the boxes or increasing the charge to overcome the revenue problem.

“I don’t want to close anything down,” she said. “I have received not one letter, not one e-mail about wanting to shut it down … It’s really nice to have a lot of people come forward because we are running their government. We were just looking for public comment.”