Dumping fees at the Pitkin County landfill are likely to go up by 4 percent on March 1.

The Pitkin County commissioners endorsed the proposed fee increase at a work session last week with county solid waste manager Chris Hoofnagle.

Fees were last raised in 2007 and before that had not been raised since 1993.

Hoofnagle explained that fees are set at a balancing point in an effort to provide revenue for the landfill and to discourage too much material from coming to the landfill, which is expected to reach capacity within 20 years.

“If trash fees are set too high the landfill will not earn enough revenue to support diversion programs like composting and recycling,” Hoofnagle wrote in a Jan. 13 memo. “Trash fees too far below local market forces will attract too much trash volume and force closure sooner than desired.”

The cost of bringing a ton of “municipal solid waste,” or “soft trash,” to the Pitkin County landfill will cost $52 in 2009, up from $50.

The cost to drop a ton of soft trash in Eagle County is $33.03 this year. The cost at the landfill in Glenwood Springs is $30.

The cost of bringing a ton of “construction and demolition debris” to the Pitkin County landfill is going up from $52 per ton to $72 per ton, compared to $47.45 in Eagle County and $36 in Glenwood.

A new construction debris grinder at the landfill is helping to reduce the amount of construction debris going into it by as much as 50 percent, Hoofnagle said.

Hoofnagle does not plan to increase fees for the dumping of dirt and rock, also called “aggregate,” as good dirt can be used as part of the landfill’s production of composting soil.

The county landfill also sells products that it makes at its site off of Highway 82 just above Aspen Village. It plans to sell road base and screened rock, mainly to the construction sector, at $14.50 per ton.

“These prices will hopefully be attractive to haulers who currently must travel to gravel pits in Carbondale where the current prices are $10.50 and $10.00 respectively,” Hoofnagle wrote. “Road base at the Elam pit in Woody Creek is $28 a ton.”

The county’s ongoing recycling efforts are increasing in cost, Hoofnagle told the commissioners, especially as commodity prices have fallen in the current economic downturn and lower demand from China. Recycled cardboard, which used to cost $125 a ton, now costs $45 a ton, Hoofnagle said. Because the county is getting less per ton, it costs the county more to ship material to Denver.

“It is clear that the overseas buyers have quit buying,” he said.

Hoofnagle said that while the county’s recycling program will likely continue to increase in cost, he’s still not ready to start burying recyclable materials.

“I would store that stuff for a long time before I came to you and asked to bury it,” Hoofnagle told the commissioners.

Second reading and a final decision will be made later this month.

bgs@aspendailynews.com