MORGANTOWN — Morgantown City Council appears ready to dig in its heels regarding a West Virginia Public Service Commission-approved rate hike being requested by the city’s contracted trash hauler, Republic Services.
On Tuesday, the body refused to even discuss passage of the $2.43 per month hike for residential customers and 4.17% jump for commercial customers tied to the operation of the Mountaineer Transfer Station in the Morgantown Industrial Park.
Deputy Mayor Jenny Selin moved to approve the increases, explaining she was doing so in order to allow discussion on the topic.
Her motion died for lack of a second and the body moved on to its next agenda item.
As mentioned, Republic has an exclusive contract to provide trash and recycling services for the city. That contract, which was renewed for five years in 2023 without taking competitive bids, includes annual rate increases that take effect in March of each year.
This past January, Republic approached city council to explain that in addition to the regular annual increase, the company needed the body to pass along the rate hikes approved by the WVPSC regarding the transfer station, which had been operating at an annual loss of more than $1 million, according to a company representative.
Council balked at the request, citing years of broken promises and a never-ending stream of citizen complaints regarding trash and recycling service. The two sides agreed to work on the nagging service issues and the matter was temporarily dropped.
Republic returned last month to renew the request.
It was explained that the council’s reluctance was keeping the transfer station in the red to the tune of $250,000.
So, what would happen if the increase was never passed?
“I can’t say, in the long run, if the transfer station were to continue to operate at a loss whether we would continue to operate that or not,” Republic General Manager Tom Beary said in November. “If it did close, waste would have to be taken out of state and I don’t know what would happen with some of our other options, like recycling.”
That got the attention of Monongalia County Litter Control Officer Alex Hall.
“It really disturbed me when I heard it,” Hall told members of the Monongalia County Commission on Wednesday.
Hall was also tuned in Tuesday, when the matter died before council without discussion.
“It may be time for us to sit down and kind of discuss ironing out some sort of contingency plan if they were to need to reallocate funds away from the recycling program that they run, or if they were to shut down the transfer station in general,” he said.
Trash service in the county falls to the WVPSC. The county commission and its employees are not involved in trash contracts other than to enforce West Virginia Code, which mandates all individuals have and use trash service or deliver their trash to the transfer station no less than every 30 days.
Even so, Hall said he receives calls weekly about the service being provided by Republic.
“There’s also cases where the neighbor calls me because they think their neighbor doesn’t have trash service, and I go out prepared to write a ticket, and they do have trash service, it just hasn’t been picked up in a couple months,” he said, noting “I understand where the city is coming from.”
The county does operate a recycling program. Material dropped at its lone drop site, next to the Westover city building, is delivered to the Mountaineer Transfer Station, a facility Republic touts as “the flagship of our recycling program in the state of West Virginia.”
The commission filed a written protest with the WVPSC regarding Republic’s transfer station increases back in 2023.
Commission President Sean Sikora said the body needs to stay involved in the conversation.
“We want to be careful. We’re not sitting here critiquing the city’s decisions or the city’s contractual relationship that we’re not privy to, but it would be a catastrophic effect to our county if the transfer station were to close,” he said.
