Many Resent Trash Fee Plan

Seven months after surviving the worst wildfires in state history, some residents of the San Bernardino Mountains say they are getting burned again, this time by a county plan to require them to pay for weekly trash collection.

With little public notice, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved several waste hauling franchise agreements in April that will require residents in the unincorporated mountain areas to pay $16 a month for mandatory trash collection.

But many mountain homes are used as vacation or weekend retreats. Some of those owners are vehemently opposed to the mandatory service, saying they don’t generate enough trash for a weekly collection. The county is expected to start the trash pickup as early as July 1.

“It’s very unfair for those of us who are up here once or twice a month,” said John Gillies, a Los Angeles resident who owns a cabin in Twin Peaks. He said he generates only a bag or two of trash per month, which he dumps at a county trash facility near Skyforest at no charge.

County officials defended the decision, saying the mandatory service will help the county meet a state mandate to recycle at least 50% of the trash dumped in county landfills. Counties that fail to meet the goal can be fined up to $10,000 a day.

San Bernardino County has failed to meet that requirement, recycling only 44% of its trash. The county has avoided any fines by receiving extensions from the state waste management board -- but that may not last much longer.

County officials, in providing residents with bins to separate recyclable cans and bottles from the rest of the garbage, hope the mandatory service will improve the recycling rate.

On April 6, supervisors adopted franchise agreements with four trash hauling companies to provide the mandatory collections in the unincorporated areas around Mt. Baldy, Upland, Montclair, Chino, Fontana, Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear City. The contracts were adopted without a public hearing or testimony.

Many residents who use their mountain homes as weekend or vacation retreats say they don’t pay for trash pickup because they generate very little. Instead, they, and even full-time residents, take their trash to a county drop-off site.

Several residents also said they don’t want to leave their trash out because unattended cans of garbage are prime targets for bears and coyotes.

Katherine Peake, a resident of Green Valley Lake, said trash left unattended overnight or for a few days will be strewn throughout the neighborhood by hungry coyotes.

“There are a zillion of them up here,” she said.

Rex Richardson, a spokesman for the county’s solid-waste management division, said there were no public hearings to launch the trash pickup service because the county has been openly expanding the program throughout the unincorporated areas since 1988.

He said residents who are part time and can prove they haul their own trash to the county site can apply for a temporary exemption from the mandatory service. But he said the county cannot offer permanent exemptions for fear that many residents would opt out of the program, making it ineffective.

He said county officials have now scheduled several public meetings over the next few weeks to discuss the program with mountain residents.