By Anne Gelhaus
In response to a lawsuit filed by Guadalupe Rubbish Disposal Inc., the four West Valley municipalities under contract with the waste-disposal company are considering taking their trash elsewhere.
The city councils of Monte Sereno, Saratoga and Campbell have already authorized a study of the fiscal and environmental impacts of dumping their waste somewhere other than the Guadalupe landfill. The Los Gatos Town Council is set to take the same action at a March meeting.
These four municipalities all have contracts with Guadalupe Rubbish Disposal under the umbrella of the West Valley Solid Waste Management Program. Under these contracts, the waste-disposal company can charge a "tipping fee" to Green Valley Disposal Company Inc., which holds the waste management program's contracts for garbage collection. According to Vera Dahle-Lacaze, West Valley Cities Solid Waste program manager, the same four shareholders own both companies.
The contracts stipulate that the rate of the tipping fee for each ton of compacted solid waste disposed at the Guadalupe landfill not exceed 15 percent of the average tipping fee charged at disposal sites in Alameda, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Using this method, Dahle-Lacaze came up with a figure of $38.15 per ton for the 1995-96 fiscal year, but in accordance with Guadalupe Rubbish Disposal's numbers, West Valley municipalities are paying $47.48 per ton.
In a Feb. 14 report to the Monte Sereno City Council, Dahle-Lacaze stated that Guadalupe Rubbish Disposal is basing the waste management program's tipping fees on public gate rates, a fee charged to non-contracted parties on an as-needed basis. These rates, she noted, are substantially higher than average tipping fees.
But Jim Lord, general manager of Guadalupe Rubbish Disposal, said the waste management program's rate review committee has changed its method of calculating these fees. He said the lawsuit his company filed last October is intended to let the courts decide the correct method of fee assessment.
"We were following the [fee-assessment] procedure established by the West Valley cities," Lord added.
Los Gatos Town Manager David Knapp said the contracts with Lord's company, signed in 1983, don't take into account the changes that have occurred in the waste management industry since 1983. California municipalities, including Los Gatos, have taken major steps to comply with a state law requiring that they reduce their solid waste output by 50 percent by the year 2000.
"The contract was made a long time ago," Knapp said, "when people's main concern was that we were running out of places to dump our trash. Now, we recycle everything in sight."
The contracts with Guadalupe Rubbish Disposal aren't exclusive, Dahle-Lacaze said, and attorneys have confirmed that the West Valley municipalities can contract out to another landfill operator.
Knapp and the other city managers involved have obtained a proposal from Browning-Ferris Industries and, pending Los Gatos' approval of the resolution, Dahle-Lacaze said she'll begin working with them to see if the waste management program should contract to dump at BFI's Newby Island landfill.
Dahle-Lacaze said the total estimated cost to evaluate the fiscal and environmental impacts of a new contract is $27,680. If the Los Gatos Town Council passes the resolution, she added, the waste management program could have a contract with BFI by May.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, March 13, 1996.
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