Harrison goes with new garbage hauler to keep the same service, but residents will pay more

The Harrison Commissioners voted to stay the course on its garbage collection system, even though it will cost more.

The commissioners voted 3-2 to award a three-year, $4.9 million garbage hauling contract to Noble Environmental, which also does business as County Hauling.

The new contract will boost residents’ monthly rate by nearly $10, going from the current rate of $26.91 to $36.84 in the contract’s first year.

That amounts to a 37% hike.

In the second year, the rate will rise 35, to $37.95 per month and then $39.09, also 3% monthly, in the final year.

Noble won the contract over the township’s current garbage hauler, Waste Management which bid $4.1 million. That is $800,000 less for the contract overall.

Waste Management’s bid would have increased the garbage fee $2.54 (9%) from $26.91 to $29.45 in the first year followed by a $2.06 (7%) increase in the second year and a $2.21 (7%) jump in year three.

Based on the monthly rates, the Noble contract would cost a Harrison resident $1,367 more over the next three years versus $1,137 for the Waste Management proposal.

That is a difference of $230 overall.

But the bids were for two different types of service, differing in the way the garbage collections will be structured.

What Noble proposed was the traditional manual collection by two to three man crews. It would be identical to what Waste Management now provides in that it allows for pickup of unlimited bags of garbage and collection of bulk items at no extra charge.

Waste Management proposed an automated pickup. In that scenario, bags of garbage would be placed in large 96-gallon plastic carts with hinged tops and left at the curb. Those carts are then hoisted by lifts on the garbage trucks and dumped in to the compactor with the crews doing little or no handling of them.

As for the cans, Township Manager Amy Rockwell said, “They (residents) would get one as part of the contract.”

They would also get the same size cart for recycling collections at no cost, according to Ralph Zoerner, a Waste Management representative, who was at the meeting.

He said the carts have a large capacity and can hold up to seven bags of garbage.

An additional garbage cart would cost a resident $114 per year.

That seemed to present a snag to residents attending the meeting, who wondered if one cart would be able to handle the garbage they generate.

Natrona resident Bill Godfrey said he really likes the present Waste Management manual collection and complimented the company for the job it does.

He said before Waste Management, residents were allowed only a limited number of bags and then were charged 50 cents for each additional one.

“When they put that 50-cent charge on the extra bags, that’s when the dumping got bad,” Godfrey said, referring to an ongoing problem in that part of the township.

He said when Waste Management won the contract with no limit on bags, that is when the dumping declined.

“A lot of the dumping we’re having now is by people who don’t pay (garbage fees) at all,” Rockwell noted.

Godfrey said he favored the current unlimited pickup, including hazardous waste, that Noble intends to continue.

Tom Leyland, another Natrona resident, said he has driven through Tarentum, which uses the Waste Management automated system, and “their alleys are clean.”

“Waste Management has done a fantastic job and if I had a vote, it would be for Waste Management because, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Leyland said.

Before making the decision, the commissioners appeared to rely on the roughly 20 residents attending the Sept. 22 meeting asking for a show of hands for each system. The majority favored Noble.

In the end, Commissioners Jim Erb, Eric Bengel and Justin Johnson voted for Noble, while Jamie Nee and Gary Meanor opposed that bid.