By David Fleet
Editor
Atlas Twp. —  On Monday night the Board of Trustees voted 5-0 to raise the cap on the garbage and recycling assessment to not exceed $200 yearly per benefited parcel. Starting on the Winter 2024 tax bill the township will actually collect between $160-$165 per benefited parcel.
Due to the costs of hosting a public hearing and notifications the law allows municipalities to set an assessed amount up to and not to exceed a specific amount.
It has been estimated that the cost of garbage and recycling for about 2,300 township residents for the next fiscal years 2023-27 will be in excess of $375,000 per year.
“We have received increases from the service provider (Emterra) including fuel surcharges every month, and starting in July 2023, a post pandemic recovery fee for every stop every month,” said Shirley Kautman-Jones, township supervisor.
The current assessment set at $125 per benefited parcel is no longer sufficient to provide trash and recycling pickup within the township, she said.
“The township cannot operate an assessment district in a deficit,” she said.
The contract with Emterra started out with the year 2023, at $10.32 a stop, now with the proposed increase it will be $11.27.
“We are not looking to replace trash service, rather we are looking to collect per parcel to cover the cost of trash and recycling,” added Kautman-Jones.
Kautman-Jones recognized that in other communities where residents were paying for their own trash and recycling pickup the costs ranged from $262 to $493 per year.
“We recognized several years ago it was not a benefit to the township to have five or seven trash companies up and down the roads five days per week,” she said.
The township has had a common carrier since the early 1990s.
“We’ve been fortunate so far that we are able to maintain a low cost,” she said “However those costs have increased.
The township refuse contract was acquired in November 2012 by Burlington, Ontario-based Emterra Environmental USA, after purchasing contracts from bankrupt Richfield Landfill, Inc. According to news sources, Halton Recycling of Ontario agreed to pay $5 million for several pieces of property that were owned by Richfield, as well as a dozen waste hauling contracts, which included the township in the Genesee County area.
In April 2014 the township board of trustees OKd a special assessment for $114 for improved lots for a total of $254,676 for garbage collection and recycling from all occupied properties in the township. Residents were paying $107 annual for the service at that time.
The cost per household was $8.45 per month or about $101 per year in addition to an adjustable surcharge due to the fluctuations in fuel costs. The new agreement, a continuation of the same cost from 2012, was in effect on Jan. 1, 2016 and continued through Dec. 31, 2021.  The new contract included an extension of an additional five years through 2026. The township will bid the service out prior to the end of the contract.