The issue of whether the Prince William County Service Authority should manage trash for a subdivision died Tuesday after Supervisor Martin E. Nohe (R-Coles) could not get any of his colleagues to second his motion to hold a public hearing on it.
Nohe, who had said previously that he simply wanted to discuss the possibility, shook his head in disbelief as Board of County Supervisors Chairman Sean T. Connaughton called for a second and was met with silence.
In Prince William, residents must arrange for trash pickup through individual private contracts with haulers or through their homeowner associations, which can negotiate contracts with haulers. Other residents take their trash to the county dump.
Prince William, which has tried to shift to privatization of county services in recent years, has stayed out of the trash business. But it has a little-known law that calls for the county to manage garbage collection when a subdivision or neighborhood of at least 50 houses can show that 55 percent or more of property owners want county-managed pickups. The law was created in 1998 because supervisors feared that the price of private garbage collection would rise significantly as large trash companies bought out smaller haulers.
Before Connaughton called for a vote on the public hearing, Supervisor Hilda M. Barg (D-Woodbridge) said approving county-managed trash collection for one subdivision would allow other subdivisions and neighborhoods to petition for the same services.
"Once we're opening this, we're opening Pandora's box," Barg said.
Tom Bruun, assistant director of public works, said the Service Authority would have selected one vendor for the trash collection and would have come up with a price based on the bids for that contract.
Supervisor Maureen S. Caddigan (R-Dumfries), vice chairman of the board, said she received several phone calls and e-mails opposing any type of county-managed trash. Homeowner associations should handle their own trash, she said.
The Occoquan Forest Owners Association has voluntary membership and doesn't have the authority to govern garbage collection for the subdivision, off Davis Ford Road, said Lois Parham, the group's secretary. Residents are left to negotiate individual contracts, resulting in about seven different trucks entering the neighborhood each week, Parham said.
"We're on a peninsula. There's one way in," she said. "This is about child safety and pet safety."
The group polled 219 homeowners and found that 82 percent supported county-managed trash collection, prompting the association to approach the county about taking over the responsibility.
Parham said she understood that residents who take their trash to the dump strongly opposed getting the county involved. She said she pays about $20 a month for twice-a-week collection. According to a county survey, residents of Occoquan Forest pay $11 to $21.50 a month for such service.
The Service Authority manages trash collection for about 1,200 residents in Yorkshire, off Route 28. Those residents pay $10 to $12 a month for the service provided by American Disposal Services of Manassas, which has a contract with the Service Authority.
The authority got involved in the Occoquan Forest situation after supervisors rejected the idea of county government directly managing the trash. Nohe asked the authority if it could handle Occoquan Forest because it already manages Yorkshire's trash.
