City mulls chopping funds for local recycling center

Ruth Bell stomped on one empty milk jug after another, compressing the gallon containers before tossing them into one of the giant plastics bins at the McIntire Road Recycling Center.

Bell has lived in the city since the mid-1970s and has used the center for many years, she said, on top of the city’s curbside recycling program.

“It’s actually just convenient to take it all,” said Bell, who uses the drop-off center about once a week and said it is an important service to have.

“Whenever I come, there seem to be a lot of people,” she said.

Officials said part of the cost savings proposed in Charlottesville’s fiscal 2011 budget — $248,928 of the $1.7 million being cut from current spending — comes from the elimination of a service contribution fee to the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority. But that would also end the city’s contribution to the McIntire Road Recycling Center, raising questions about the center’s future.

“Is it a nicety or a necessity? And at this point, do we fund niceties, in tough budget times?” said Judy Mueller, the director of Charlottes-ville’s Department of Public Works. “It’s not a necessity except for batteries and cell phones.”

The city has bolstered its own curbside recycling program that takes close to all of the materials accepted at the drop-off center. But councilors say no final decision about funding the recycling center has been made, and they have indicated they would like to set aside a $100,000 contingency to have flexibility until they review the matter more thoroughly at a work session next month.

“I would not want to see us make that assumption in the budget until we have our work session in April,” Mayor Dave Norris said. “It’s not a done deal that we’re going to pull out of the recycling center.”

Others have expressed similar feelings, saying having a curbside service does not negate the need for the center. But, Norris said, “I think there is a strong sense in certain quarters that we don’t need the recycling center.”

The contingency would not be set aside formally in the city’s spending plan until the fiscal 2011 budget gets approved April 12. Councilors have scheduled their work session for April 19.

The solid waste authority has been operating the center since 1991 but it has been in its McIntire Road spot since 1979. According to the authority’s Web site, the recycling center sees visits from more than 500 customers per day and recycles more than 5 million pounds of materials annually.

City officials said the service contribution fee traditionally paid to the solid waste authority was eliminated as part of the terms of the authority’s settlement with recycling company owner Peter van der Linde, after it sued him on charges of racketeering, fraud, interfering with a fee expectation under a contract and conspiring to harm the authority’s business. They settled in January for $600,000 and BFI Waste Systems also agreed to pay the authority $300,000.

“It was just part of what was negotiated by the judge,” said Kenneth C. Boyd, a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors who sits on the solid waste authority’s board of directors. The county will also no longer have to pay that fee.

Mueller said the fee pays for all of the programs the solid waste authority provides, so not having that financial source will mean it will have to cut back.

“We do not know what the future of the recycling center is because we don’t know what the county is doing,” Mueller said.

At the same time, if the city chooses to stick with it, Councilor David Brown said, “I don’t think it’s really clear what the costs of the recycling center would be.”

The solid waste authority occasionally takes usage surveys to figure out where recycling center users live, but officials say they cannot pinpoint how many users are Charlottesville residents.

Boyd said he does not know if the county could independently finance the center should the city go its own way.

“Obviously it’s something we’re going to have to decide,” he said.

But officials say that nothing definitive has been decided.

“It’s kind of premature to predict exactly what the picture of solid waste is going to be in a year or two,” Brown said.