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Though it doesn’t expire for four years, Recology Del Norte requested a 10 year extension on its collections franchise contract with the local Solid Waste Management Authority.

Recology General Manager Jeremy Herber said Tuesday since his company was potentially spending more than $200,000 to replace street-side waste receptacles, he wanted to make changes to the agreement that has been in place since 2011.

If the extension was approved, Recology Del Norte’s contract would expire in 2033.

Four members of the Del Norte Solid Waste Management board voted 3-1 to direct staff to begin contract negotiations with Recology. Commissioner Jason Greenough, one of two Crescent City representatives, dissented, saying extending Recology’s contract without seeking for other waste collectors wasn’t “doing our due diligence.”

The Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority Board’s public seat is currently vacant.

Herber included purchasing new street-side trash and recycling containers in a list of requested changes to Recology Del Norte’s contract. The metal receptacles have reached the end of their life, he said, and are prone to rust and tipping over.

Herber said Crescent City Manager Eric Wier proposed replacing the receptacles with concrete containers, which would cost about $215,000.

“The cans that were put in place did not have the life expectancy of the 12 year agreement and therefore we’re left with a situation where they’re not going to make it to the end of the contract,” Herber said of the 60 receptacles that need to be replaced.

“Recology will pick up the entire fee, there will be no rate increases for this. This is something that we would provide and all we ask is for an extension to be able to amortize that over 10 years.”

Herber requested that a new contract include a possible recycling theft ordinance, saying Recology Del Norte loses more than $50,000 a year in products that carry a CRV deposit. He also requested weight limits on compactors, saying that some of the compactors were beyond his trucks’ capacity to handle.

Herber also requested a process for reviewing rate changes that were tied to the consumer price index and for ways to deal with possible changes in the recycling market. Any new contract should also have a place holder for a transfer station in the northern Del Norte County, he said, noting that Recology Del Norte is already servicing the Klamath and Gasquet facilities.

Herber’s request for an extension to Recology Del Norte’s collections franchise contract comes nearly two months after trash rates increased by 6.12 percent.

Recology also began providing 32 gallon trash carts to existing customers at the 20-gallon trash rate. New Recology customers are unable to sign up for the 20 gallon trash service, however.

Herber’s request for a contract extension prompted David Slagle, of Hambro WSG, which mans the Del Norte Transfer Station, to say his company would be interested in conducting waste collection for Del Norte County.

“If it’s a matter of they’re doing a good job and you’re happy, I think you ought to get an extension,” Slagle said. “If you’re looking at other options or other courses of action, we’d be interested in it. What we’re not interested in, is doing the research, spending the time and money in order to be told ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.’”

Slagle’s comment prompted District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard to question if looking for another waste hauler to hold the collections franchise contract with Del Norte County wouldn’t be a reasonable step.

Though he made the motion for staff to enter into contract negotiations with Recology, Howard said he wasn’t comfortable with agreeing to an extension without looking for a competitive deal.

“The bottomline is we serve the public,” he said. “As people who serve the public we look for the best price possible. Sole sourcing the contract, to me, isn’t going back out seeking the most competitive price.”

Howard’s colleague on the Solid Waste Board, Crescent City Mayor Blake Inscore said with the volatility in the recycling market, the next collections contract the authority enters into will be fundamentally different than its current form. Waiting four years to seek proposals from potential alternatives to Recology would also result in a different contract and could cost more money, he said.

“In my opinion, and it is only that, the most responsible thing we could do for your average rate payer is look at how we can manage existing services with the contractors we have,” Inscore said, referring to both Recology Del Norte and Hambro WSG. “I don’t think the cans should be the driving decision on whether or not we do an extension. If that becomes a part of what happens out of this, I’m OK with that, but we should be driving this decision from the standpoint of how do we best serve our community?”

Solid Waste Authority Director Tedd Ward noted that even if the board decided to contract with a different firm, the only facility in the area processing recyclables is the Recology Humboldt plant in Samoa.

“I don’t really anticipate there being another processor in the region capable of processing our recyclables,” Ward said. “Given the size and location of the facility Recology has in Humboldt, chances are they will be the facility that will process (our) recyclables regardless of who collects them.”

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