Published: October 08, 2009 09:44 pm      

Officials propose new trash service

RICHLANDS, Va. — Faced with a growing number of illegal trash dumps in Tazewell County, officials are proposing a new trash removal service in the Northwestern District that could eventually become a county-wide program.

“We are not trying to get into the private garbage business,” Seth White, the Northwestern District Board of Supervisors, member said Thursday. “We are just trying to provide service to folks where service is not currently available.”

White said private trash haulers are not currently serving parts of Raven and Jewell Ridge. The area also doesn’t have a transfer station site, and efforts to find suitable property for a transfer site station have been unsuccessful to date.

“Currently they can either haul their stuff all the way to Cedar Bluff, or what we are seeing is some people in the county are creating dump sites,” White said. “We’ve mapped a hundred dump sites in the county. But people aren’t going to create dump sites if all they have do is put their trash out (for pick up).”

As a result, the county is hoping to bid out the service to private haulers. White said the town of Richlands, which provides its own trash removal service, wouldn’t be included in the plan.

“If this works successfully in the Northwestern District, it is something we would like to have for all of Tazewell County,” White said. “It offers several things. First you get trash removal at your door. Two we offer recycling. Then it gives the people an opportunity to do something that is good for the county and the environment.”

White said several surrounding counties already offer a similar mandatory service.

“The reason you have to make it mandatory is because if you do that it brings the costs down for everyone,” White said. “But before we implement something, we want to get plenty of public feedback. We’ve had one meeting in Jewell Ridge. We are working to schedule another meeting. We had about 20 people that showed up at our last meeting. All of the feedback was positive from the folks who were at the meeting.”

White said there is no immediate time frame for the proposed service.

“We are working really hard on it, but it is going to take some time,” White said. “I’m not going to just throw this out at people without a lot of public feedback. But if the people don’t want it, I’m not going to push it.”

If such a service were to become county wide, White said some existing transfer station sites could be eliminated.

– Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com