Summit County landfill needs a new trash pit. But as county commissioners learned today, even your trash is not immune to inflation.
A new pit, known as a cell, will cost an estimated $7.5 million. The last cell cost $1.3 million in 2001.
“Nothing has changed,” landfill manager Aaron Byrne told commissioners today. “The liner system is the same, the construction is the same, the engineering and quality control process is the same. It is the same exact cell we built in 2001.”
Commissioner Tamara Pogue was floored, saying, “This is the most poignant example of inflation, the cells, and the difference in cost from the last cell to this cell. It is the most glaring example.”
Byrne was pitching a landfill rate hike. Rates, known as “tip fees,” have not increased in 15 years. The most recent change, in 2016, was a rate discount made to incentivize local trash haulers to use the local landfill, instead of trucking waste down I-70 to the Front Range.
“Landfills don’t lower tips fees,” he said. “But that is what we did.”
If approved, the rate hike will be 18% for “loose waste,” typically construction waste (from $72 to $85 per ton), and nearly 38% percent for household waste (from $58 to $80 per ton).
Byrne knows there will be backlash. But he believes there is no other option.
“How do we extend the life of the landfill? 2078 is now the estimated closure,” he said. “Our goal is to extend that. Diversion will do that. We know that. But to operate the landfill in the meantime, to cover the cost, the cost (to store waste) is not getting cheaper.”