Trash infusion

Ran on Friday, July 6, 2007

Trash infusion
Minnesota garbage piling up at Seven Mile

By Leader-Telegram staff and McClatchy-Tribune

An Eau Claire County landfill dramatically increased the amount of Minnesota garbage it took in last year while statewide numbers dropped.
Veolia ES Seven Mile Creek Landfill took in 148,603 tons of Minnesota garbage in 2006, up from 55,370 the previous year.
"Minnesota waste companies generally are looking to dispose of waste in the cheapest way possible," said Dave Lundberg, west-central region waste program manager for the Department of Natural Resources.
The fluctuation is not new; the comparatively small amount dumped in the landfill from Minnesota in 2005 was described as "an anomaly" by Brad Wolbert, a hydrogeologist in the waste and management bureau of the DNR.
Landfills turn in a tonnage report to the DNR each year detailing how much trash was brought into their fill. The information is separated into types of trash as well as the state it came from.
Lundberg said the ebbs and flows can be attributed to competition among waste facilities and fuel prices. He said this year the company that owns Eau Claire's landfill, Veolia Environmental Services, must have been a better economic choice for the companies.
Veolia officials were unavailable for comment Thursday.
The amount of garbage from other states dumped in Wisconsin landfills declined by about 229,000 tons last year to about 1.9 million tons, the DNR said.
Lynn Morgan, a spokeswoman for Waste Management of Wisconsin, the state's largest waste hauler and landfill operator, said the decline in out-of-statewwaste sent to Wisconsin last year likely reflects the normal annual fluctuations of the waste hauling business.
"It's not unusual to have shifts in tonnage for any number of reasons," she said.
But Morgan said increasing transportation costs are causing out-of-state companies and municipalities, which contract with waste haulers, to look for closer landfills to dispose of their waste.
Wisconsin trash, on the other hand, is staying inside state lines.
Wolbert said in 2005, the most recent year for which data is available, 244,000 tons of trash from Wisconsin homes and businesses left the state to settle in Michigan and Illinois.
The highest annual total of out-of-state garbage that came into Wisconsin was 2.2 million tons in 2004. Most of it has been coming from neighboring Illinois and Minnesota.
The latest statistics came out recently as the Wisconsin Legislature debates proposals to increase what's known as the recycling tipping fee. The fee is one of several assessed on all waste dumped in Wisconsin landfills; the revenue it generates supports local recycling programs.
The state budget bill submitted by Gov. Jim Doyle proposed raising the fee from $3 a ton to $6 a ton. The Democrat-controlled state Senate approved an increase to $10 a ton before sending the legislation to the Republican-controlled Assembly.
"Wisconsin's tipping fee is a blue-light special for other states to ship waste here rather than develop more thoughtful recycling programs or build new landfills in their states," said Sen. Bob Jauch, D-Poplar, an advocate of the $10 tipping fee.
But Charlene Lemoine, who works on waste issues for the Waukesha County Environmental Action League, said Wisconsin's low tipping fee combined with tight restrictions in neighboring states on the siting and size of landfills has created a situation that Wisconsin landfill operators are capitalizing on.