County sets up decal to get in dump

Free entry for residents 'It's important . . . to move people quickly'

Weekends tend to be the time to dump in Prince William County.

Pick any Saturday, public works officials said, and an average of 3,000 vehicles will go through the gate of the landfill.

Before, county residents were waved through, using the once-required Prince William vehicle sticker as their free ticket in. But with those no longer in existence, county officials were forced to come up with a new way to keep the line of cars moving and determine who can dump for free at solid waste facilities.

On Tuesday, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors gave public works officials the go-ahead to create a vehicle decal that will help landfill operators determine who is using the solid waste facilities.

"The issue we have is we get a lot of people and do only allow county residents to come in at no charge," Public Works Director Thomas Bruun said. "It's important we have a way to move people quickly and know who is coming in from the county. . . . We don't want [too many] outside users to come in and use up landfill space."

The decals, which will read "solid waste disposal," are free to Prince William residents, who pay $70 a year in taxes per household to use the county landfill, the Balls Ford Road Compost Facility and rural park-out locations. The decals are not required, and people who dispose of waste only a few times a year can just bring a driver's license or other form of identification. Non-county residents will still have to pay $5 every time they use one of the facilities.

"We think if regular customers get a decal and then we spot-check, we'll be able to keep the lines moving" at the landfill, Bruun said.

These decals have no expiration date and should cost about $15,000 to create and mail this year. After that, the cost should fall to about $7,000 annually. Thomas Smith, head of the Solid Waste Division, said his department plans to cover the cost of the decals this year, taking the money from its roughly $15 million operating budget. The plan is to create about 15,000 stickers, far fewer than the roughly 400,000 county ones that needed to be produced yearly at a cost of more than $135,000.

The decals can be ordered off the Prince William Web site, http://www.pwcgov.org, or at the solid waste facilities and should be available in the next few weeks, Smith said.

Bruun said his department looked at how other jurisdictions handle their solid waste programs and chose to follow what King George County does -- provide free landfill decals -- because it is the most cost-effective and efficient way to monitor and move people through solid waste sites.

Fairfax and Loudoun counties charge all landfill users. Stafford and Fauquier counties do spot checks of driver's licenses, but they have far fewer vehicles. Prince William has one of the largest landfills in the region. More than 500,000 trips are made each year to the solid waste facilities in the county, county officials said.

Another option Bruun said officials considered was to purchase technology that could digitally read license plates. Solid waste officials would screen the plates as people drove through and, if they were not registered in the county, make the drivers pay. The technology is expensive, however, so that option will remain on the back burner, at least for now.