While San Benito County residents produce an average of 275 tons of trash each day, supervisors have waived a limit of 400 tons per day at the John Smith Landfill in hopes of creating a revenue source by bringing in more trash from other counties. On Tuesday, supervisors agreed to amend a contract with Waste Connections, Inc., that will allow the landfill operator to seek out contracts with other agencies to bring in up to 1,000 tons of trash a day to the location.
Mandy Rose, the director of Integrated Waste Management, said the approval would allow employees of Waste Connections to negotiate with other agencies in hopes of getting contracts in place by July 1. She said the earliest the tonnage would change would be in early June.
Rose said while there are days when the county receives a total of 500 tons of trash, the county average is 275 tons with the remainder coming from outside the county.
“We received a permit revision up to 1,000 tons,” Rose said, adding that in 1992, the county adopted the practice of accepting outside trash to increase revenue for the landfill.
Rose said Waste Connections, Inc. will be taking over the bulk of the county’s costs to operate the landfill.
“It’s an economy of scale,” said Supervisor Anthony Botelho. “We want to keep the rates for users of the landfill down, meaning our citizens.”
He said he thought the amendment will work well when the Resource Recovery Park gets under way as well.
“It goes hand in hand with what we’ve been working on for a number of years,” he said. “It behooves us to maintain their (Waste Connections, Inc.) profitability.”
The supervisors approved the amendments with a 4-0 vote, with Supervisor Robert Rivas absent from the meeting.
