Dump Fees for Garbage Frozen; Rate Pact Sought : Landfills: A year’s moratorium on price increases is voted as supervisors hope talks will produce consensus on forestalling or limiting future boosts.

SANTA ANA —  In a bid to accommodate both trash haulers and consumers, the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a one-year freeze in fees for dumping trash at four county-owned landfills and indicated that it will pursue a plan to stabilize rates.

While further fee increases--approaching 40%--are still possible by 1994, the county is working to forge with cities a stabilization plan to forestall the need for price boosts, or at least to limit the increases in these gate fees.

County residents have reason to worry about gate fees because increases are passed along by trash companies to consumers as higher garbage rates.

“The keys are stability and predictability,” said Vickie Wilson, assistant director of the county’s Integrated Waste Management Department. “The cities want some assurance of rate stability, while the county wants the predictability of revenues.”

Wilson said county officials hope to devise a rate stabilization agreement to present to the board within six months.

The gate fee to dump trash is now $22.75 a ton. Still on the table are options to raise fees by up to $4.25 in 1993 and $4.55 in 1994.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said he hopes that agreements can be reached to avoid increases in gate fees, which have doubled in the last 10 years.

But Vasquez said other factors, such as inflation and state and federal regulatory requirements, may force some increases. For example, about 39% of the gate fee now pays for current regulatory compliance, county statistics indicate.

“Those are unknowns that the board cannot control,” said Vasquez, adding that controlling administrative costs will be a priority before fee increases are considered.

The Integrated Waste Management Department in fiscal 1991-92 has cut 45 jobs, instituted an equipment freeze and scaled back some projects to cover a projected $13.5-million shortfall in its $130-million budget.

But much depends on what Vasquez calls the “waste stream”: less trash disposed of in landfills means that the county gets less revenue--which increases the need to charge more.

Ironically, the county’s success at recycling--which everyone agrees is for the greater good--makes it that much harder to recover needed revenues.

Landfill volumes decreased by 13% this year over previous years. There are two reasons, county officials said:

* A sagging economy has decreased the amount of demolition and construction debris received at landfills.

* State-mandated recycling programs have reduced landfill volume and hurt revenues. State law requires counties to divert 25% of wastes from landfills by 1995. But officials expect the county to meet the goal a year early.

The issue of rising gate fees had become so pressing that one trash hauler, Anaheim Disposal Inc., had threatened to take its business elsewhere. The company did just that for two months in 1991, at an estimated loss to the county of $1.4 million, according to county officials.

Since then, the company has been talking with county officials about long-term problems of waste management.

Anaheim Disposal Chief Executive Officer Vincent Taormina said Tuesday that he is “happy” with the board’s decision to freeze gate fees and pursue rate stabilization. At least for the near future, he said, his company will continue to use the county’s Brea landfill to dump 2,500 tons of garbage a day.

“There are still many issues being explored, . . . but they followed through with their commitment to further explore justifications of rate increases; they finally listened,” Taormina said.

The board did approve a fee increase of $4.25 a ton, to $55.50 per ton from $51.25 per ton, to dispose of used tires. County officials said the increase is needed to keep up with the costs of transporting the material to a Modesto recycling center.

However, used tires make up less than 1% of about 3.5 million tons of trash deposited at the county’s landfills each year, so that fee increase will have little impact on revenue, said Frank R. Bowerman, director of the county’s Integrated Waste Management Department.

But the new fee will help bring the county in line with surrounding counties, Bowerman said.

“We were in jeopardy of becoming a dumping ground for tires,” he said. “People were coming from as far away as Las Vegas.”

In other board action, the supervisors formally voted to deny a permit for Lake Hills Community Church to operate a child-care center under an El Toro Marine Corps Air Station flight path. Supervisors said they agreed with Marine officials who argued that operation of the facility, at high risk of accidents, would pose too much of a danger.

In a bid to ease jail crowding, the board also voted for several new programs, including in-jail and video arraignments, increased work furlough and electronic surveillance. The new programs result from a 16-month study by a panel of law enforcement officials who looked at alternatives to jail incarceration.

But the panel also said the county must commit itself to building more jails, warning that “the serious public danger resulting from overcrowding will increase.”

The county’s search for more jail space faltered last year when financial and legislative hurdles forced supervisors to drop plans for a new jail in Gypsum Canyon, near Anaheim Hills.

The county now wants to double the bed space at the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange, but city officials there are suing to block the expansion.