The Billings Regional Landfill currently accepts waste from adjoining counties, cities, and towns within those counties.  In the past, this has been accomplished with agreements with each entity.  There are several recommended changes to the landfill agreements from previous years' agreements as outlined below:

• The new agreements are with the agency responsible for hauling the waste rather than with each individual county, town, and city, reducing the number of landfill agreements from fourteen to seven.
• All agreements, except for the agreement with Yellowstone County, are for five years rather than one year.  These agreements also include insurance requirements and better delineate payment terms.
• The agreement with Yellowstone County will continue to be a one year agreement, but has been amended to charge Yellowstone County for only the estimated tonnage of self-haul residential waste.  All other waste will now be paid directly by the private haulers.  Previously, Yellowstone County had been responsible for payment of the estimated tonnage of all residential and commerciall waste hauled to the landfill.  
• The Yellowstone County agreement amends the payment terms from semiannually to quarterly.
• The agreements with the private haulers are new agreements as Article 21-200 of the Billings Municipal City Code (BMCC) was amended in April, 2014 to permit agreements with private haulers.  These agreements specify that each location the private hauler desires to haul from must be pre-approved by the City.

The current landfill agreements expire on June 30, 2014 and staff recommends the new agreements to be approved effective July 1, 2014.

   

The City Council may:

• approve the landfill agreements
• not approve the landfill agreements.  If Council does not approve the agreements, other towns and counties will not be allowed to use the City of Billings Landfill, resulting in a significant loss of revenue for the solid waste fund.

The landfill agreements will generate approximately $1,900,000 in revenue for the solid waste fund in fiscal year 2015, as well as approximately $110,000 in franchise fees and out-of-state surcharge fees for the general fund. 

Staff recommends the City Council approve the one-year landfill agreement with Yellowstone County and the five-year landfill agreements with the City of Laurel, Stillwater County, the City of Powell, MacKenzie Disposal, Republic Services, and Two Tough Guys Services.