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ELKINS -- Despite lingering concerns from city officials, Elkins City Council approved the final reading of an ordinance that would establish a limit on the number of garbage bags that city sanitation services will collect from customers.
Six of the eight present council members voted in favor of approving the final reading of Ordinance 345 during Thursday night's meeting.
First Ward Council member Robert Chenoweth and Fifth Ward Council member Cody Thompson voted against the ordinance. Fourth Ward's Nanci Bross-Fregonara and Fifth Ward's David Parker were absent from the meeting.
Ordinance 345 will impose a bag limit for city sanitation customers, stipulated as:
* 12 kitchen-type trash bags which are the maximum size of 13 gallons or;
* Six larger trash bags which are the maximum size of 30 gallons or;
* Three contractor bags which are the maximum size of 55 gallons.
The ordinance also states that no trash bag should weigh more than 30 lbs and that any bags "beyond the specified limits for each category" shall not be collected by the Sanitation Department on the weekly day of service.
Any left over bags would be picked up the following week.
The ordinance will not go into effect until Sept. 1, to allow the city time to publicize it for customers.
Before council approved the first reading of the ordinance during their June 12 meeting, Elkins City Operations Manager Michael Kesecker explained to the council that the main driver behind the need for a bag limit was to prevent illegal dumping.
Before council voted on the final reading Thursday night, Chenoweth questioned the specific numbers for each bag type. Third Ward representative Christopher Lowther, who is on the city's Rules and Ordinances Committee and who has worked with Kesecker on the ordinance, explained that the bag numbers are considered an average in other places.
"All sanitation providers around us have a six-bag limit..." Lowther told the council. "That is consistent with Tygart Valley Sanitation, Sunrise Sanitation, Alleghany Disposal, waste management in Harrison County and Stuart Sanitation in Barbour County... (and) the Town of Davis also goes by that as well."
Chenoweth explained that his concern for customers revolved around his own experience with having eight people in his home, and the area's lack of a recycling center to get rid of cardboard and plastic.
He explained he worried the ordinance was prejudiced towards punishing city customers when the problem is county residents illegally dumping in the city. Lowther disagreed.
"I really don't think this is going to be an issue for most people," Lowther said. "I really don't... You pay the lowest trash rate in the state of West Virginia. $19.54 a month. Everybody else around you is paying $30 to $42 a month for trash tax."
Chenoweth countered that while he agreed that a bag limit is not a bad idea, he still believed the six-bag limit was "not reasonable."
Fourth Ward representative Andrew Carroll told Chenoweth he believed the limit was "a good guardrail" and set a discretionary guideline for when city sanitation workers face an issue of a customer "pushing the limit." He added that the limit may also lead city residents to consider the "cost" of what they throw away.
When First Ward representative Cody Kerns questioned what would happen on holidays that produce more garbage. Lowther said that, at the discretion of the Sanitation Department and of Kesecker, accommodations could be made on the holidays.
Thompson also voiced his wariness over the ordinance, citing concerns from a public health perspective in regard to left-over bags not being picked up until the next week.
When Lowther explained that, by a previous city ordinance, all bags are supposed to be in trash cans, Thompson countered that there are city residents who do not follow that rule.
"It should be (in a trash can), but I can tell you right now, you go down my alley, I'm the only one who has it in a can," Thompson said. "I have concerns about that garbage being out there and attracting other, you know, critters that would get into it, tear it up."
Before the council voted, Lowther argued that he doubted there would be trash "scattered on the city streets of Elkins" because of the ordinance; however, he also added that the issue needed to be addressed on the county level.
"If we have that much of an issue, then the (Randolph) County Commission needs to look at enforcing the mandatory disposal law that was passed in 1992 that they've never enforced," Lowther said.
Elkins City Council will next meet on, July 10.