By Connie Leinbach
Later this year, when property tax notices go out, Hyde County residents will find the addition of $180 to their bills, which is a fee approved in June to dump their trash at one of the convenience sites in the county.
But before that, the Hyde County commissioners want to enact a new solid waste ordinance.
A draft measure was unveiled at the July 7 board meeting, and the commissioners will hold a day-long workshop on this ordinance starting at 10:30 a.m. Monday, July 14, where the public can comment before and after the meeting. Comments also can be submitted via the Hyde County website here.
A public hearing on the measure will be held at 10:30 a.m. on July 28.
Following that hearing, the ordinance is scheduled to be voted on at the Aug. 2 commissioners’ meeting.
All meetings will be livestreamed on the Hyde County Public Information Facebook page.
At the July meeting, Hyde County explained that while Hyde does have an ordinance on the books, it is very old, and the new draft is a revised version to regulate the collection, management and storage of solid waste generated in the county.
Hyde spends $1.5 million each year to dispose of all of the county’s trash, and the new user fee will help recoup about half of that, noted Randal Mathews, Ocracoke’s commissioner and the board chair.
The ordinance itself will not state the fee, said Hyde County Manager Kris Cahoon Noble, but the fee will be listed in the Master Fee Schedule (of all county fees) that will be posted on the Hyde County website.
Noble said the original ordinance is in black print with the proposed changes in blue. The ordinance is on pages 125 to 153 on the agenda packet information on the Hyde County website.
As for the trash disposal fees, Noble explained that a lot of misinformation is circulating on social media and that trash fees are common throughout the state.
“For Hyde County to be one of the most impoverished counties in the state and not have a solid waste availability fee we’re not only cheating our government, we’re cheating our system,” Noble said. “This is an effort to bring it down to a user-based fee.”
She said that she reviewed the trash fees in all 100 counties in the state and that the $180 is “not an outrageous fee.”
While the fee starts out as fixed, Noble said that the ultimate goal is to establish fees according to how much waste a household or business generates. That’s why it will be called an “availability” fee.
She also said she is adding a clause (that’s not in the online version) that exempts those deemed indigent by the Department of Social Services.
She noted that “commercial” waste is one of the challenges, especially on Ocracoke because none of the other counties in the state accept commercial waste at their dumps.
According to the draft ordinance, “commercial solid waste means all types of solid waste generated by stores, offices, restaurants, warehouses, and other non-manufacturing activities, excluding residential, industrial waste and institutional wastes.”
She said that in the next budget year they should review fees assigned to this kind of waste.
“But to explain to you how very far behind we are, no other counties accept commercial waste in their dumps for free, and right now our citizens are paying those bills, and this is a part of the effort to rectify that inequality,” Noble said. “This is an effort to take this off our citizens’ shoulders and put it where it needs to be.”
Other counties require commercial trash creators to have bins at their businesses, but that’s not possible at some of the businesses on Ocracoke that don’t have a lot of land, she said. So, the commissioners will be looking into getting a weighted bin especially for them and for which they would have to pay per pound.
Demolition and construction trash already does not go to the dump, she said, explaining that the building inspector determines if each project needs its own haulable bins.
The ordinance says those who pay for their own trash removal will be exempted from the fee:
“Residential, commercial, industrial, or institutional inhabitable structural units will not be billed annual solid waste fees if private collection services are servicing the tax parcel with a front-end truck, and the County does not pay for the disposal cost of the waste,” which, Noble said, would mean it would have to be taken directly to a landfill.
If someone picks up a resident’s trash and takes it to a Hyde County dump, the resident still has to pay the fee.
This ordinance does not affect those businesses picking up trash for other except that they will have to be licensed, Noble said. She said it’s not to discourage local business.
“We just want to be organized and know who is a local collector,” she said.
Among the new definitions is yard waste, Noble said.
According to the draft, “Yard trash waste means solid waste consisting solely of vegetative matter resulting from landscaping maintenance such as brush, grass, tree limbs, leaves, and similar vegetative material. For the purposes of this chapter, this term does not include stumps or material greater than 8” in diameter or 6’ to 8’ in length.”
“This is a big deal on Ocracoke because we don’t set yard waste there,” Noble said. “We only do chipping service.”
Some of the other new additions include no open burning of trash in the county and no depositing of hazardous or liquid waste.
Rules for the convenience sites are included in the ordinance, with new language for scavenging.
While section 32-53 (9) of the ordinance says “no person may loiter, scavenge or rummage about the collection sites to remove items therefrom,” Noble said this will not prohibit the reusing of items left at the dump.
“The staff will set them aside for a reasonable amount of time,” she said. “This is to prevent dumpster diving.”
Staff will be able to inspect trash for unauthorized items.
Littering would also be prohibited throughout the county as would just leaving trash at a closed site.