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IRC eyes formation of authority in Blair

Four municipalities want to involve all 24 county entities

The managers of the four municipalities that comprise the council of governments that operates state-mandated curbside recycling in Blair County will meet soon to discuss creating a county-wide recycling and solid waste authority.

The managers of Altoona, Logan Township, Hollidaysburg and Tyrone — along with their elected officials and the Intermunicipal Relations Committee staff — want to create an authority that involves all 24 Blair municipalities to spread out funding responsibility for solid waste tasks the IRC took over after the county dropped them a few years ago.

Those additional responsibilities — operating compost facilities in Dysart and Duncansville, holding periodic hazardous waste and electronics collections and preventing and removing illegal dumps — are costing the IRC about $150,000 a year, according to its Executive Director John Frederick.

That amount is equal to the organization’s annual operational deficit — a deficit expected to run the IRC out of reserves in the last quarter of 2018, according to Frederick.

That will force the four IRC municipalities to begin subsidizing the organization, a requirement that officials hope to avoid.

The 20 other county municipalities, meanwhile, are getting about $66,000 worth of benefits from those former county services now performed by the IRC, based on their populations’ share of services received for the $150,000 the IRC spends on those efforts, according to information provided by Frederick.

The organization loses $70,000 a year on composting, $40,000 each for hazardous waste and electronics and $6,000 for illegal dumps, Frederick said.

Based on IRC findings, the use of those former county services is highly proportional to the distribution of population by municipality in the county, according to Frederick.

The IRC took over the county’s solid waste responsibilities because the county eliminated the department devoted to them, following a 2007 Superior Court ruling that ended the county’s collection of a tipping fee that funded the department’s operations and the subsequent exhaustion of the department’s reserve funds.

The court ruled that the state’s solid waste law, Act 101, didn’t allow for the county tipping fee.

But the state’s Municipal Authorities Act permits authorities to charge fees to provide services, Frederick said.

Those fees would be pennies per month per household, Frederick predicted.

The IRC is hoping that all 24 municipalities would be willing to join, based on a vote of their elected officials, Frederick said.

Such participation would be voluntary for each one, he said.

He’s optimistic that once they all the elected bodies hear his arguments, they’ll come around, he said.

It would be difficult for the proposed authority to perform its tasks if only some of the 20 municipalities joined, Frederick said.

Among those difficulties would be having to figure out what share of compost in a packer truck came from non-participating municipalities, he said.

“Logistically a nightmare,” he said.

Another difficulty would be having to check residency for those who brought items to the special collections, he said.

It’s not clear whether the IRC would be folded into the authority, said Marla Marcinko, Altoona city manager and member of the IRC board.

But the IRC could serve as authority staff, Frederick said.

“(An authority) is a way to bring the other municipalities into the fold,” said Logan Township Supervisor and IRC board member Jim Patterson. “To be contributors.”

Asked whether the lukewarm enthusiasm for recycling in this area will make it difficult to persuade municipalities to join, Frederick cited what he called a “foundation” of enthusiastic residents and businesses.

“We just have to build on (that),” he said.

People tend not to appreciate the value of what the IRC does, like collecting hazardous waste and controlling illegal dumping, officials said.

Hazardous waste can be a problem that sneaks up on families when they buy a house or clean out the one they grew up in — and find a trove of paint, turpentine and other solvents in the garage, said IRC education coordinator Katrina Pope.

Illegal dumping can in theory be devastating, according to Hollidaysburg Borough Manager Jim Gehret.

What if a dump along the headwaters of Mill Run polluted the Mill Run Reservoir? he asked rhetorically.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.

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