St. Louis County Trash Wars: The Sequel

One person’s garbage is another’s bread and butter. In a nutshell, that is what’s behind the long-running “trash wars” of St. Louis County. Now the Missouri Supreme Court even got into the fray.

In 2007, St. Louis County government began awarding exclusive contracts to collect trash in unincorporated parts of its jurisdiction. After many delays, the new contracts went into effect. A dozen other firms were, if you’ll pardon the expression, dumped.

And they want their customers back. Thanks to a couple of apparent goofs by county officials, they may get their wish.

Had County Executive Charlie A. Dooley and the County Council showed more patience, they might have pulled off this transition without a hitch. Instead, the county continues to face a big mess in the garbage business and millions of dollars in potential damages. Meanwhile, no one is sure who can haul what trash from where.

Some background: Until 2007, a free market existed for trash-hauling in unincorporated St. Louis County, areas that lay outside the boundaries of municipalities. As many as 20 haulers competed for customers among the 104,000 households. Customers could hire their own trash collector or band together with neighbors to negotiate a deal.

The mess theorists pointed out the inefficiency of having noisy trucks from several haulers serving the same streets. Free-marketers claimed the system supplied an incentive for good service, since a citizen could fire a hauler who under-performed.

Even though many residents, particularly in unincorporated South County, turned out to feel passionately about their favorite trash companies, Mr. Dooley and the County Council divided the county into eight districts and declared that a single hauler would have exclusive rights in each one.

But the spurned companies were not without clout. They convinced the Missouri Legislature to enact a law requiring two-years’ notice before a county government could switch to exclusive contracts. They argued that haulers have a big investment and lots of employees at stake, and that they need time to adjust before government snatches away business.

Missouri Attorney General and now Governor, Jay Nixon’s office opined that counties had to comply with that law. And although the Legislature’s action clearly was aimed at St. Louis County, Mr. Dooley maintained that St. Louis County’s home rule charter made it exempt. The county went ahead with its plan and awarded contracts to low bidders.

The losing haulers sued, and a state Court of Appeals ruled that the county had to respect the new law’s two-year waiting period. Meanwhile, the county forgot to establish penalties for haulers who sign up customers in the exclusive territories in violation of exclusive contracts.

The result has been confusion. Losing haulers are trying to entice their previous customers back into the fold, while haulers who thought they had exclusive contracts are discovering that they don’t.

Meanwhile, a second lawsuit lurks, this one claiming that setting up garbage districts requires a popular vote. Now, the entire mess is headed for the Missouri Supreme Court. (Actually today there are four law suits pending)

This could get awfully expensive for the county. One losing hauler, Waste Management Inc., says it expects to lose $65 million in business over two years as a result of the changes. “We had to park trucks and lay off over 60 employees,” says a spokeswoman. “It could be damages that we’ll ask for.”

To top off the confusion, subdivisions representing a quarter of the eligible households opted out of the county plan, which means there still will be plenty of garbage trucks rumbling around.

In theory, the county’s garbage takeover might be a good idea. The winning bidders are charging $11 to $13 a month, which is several dollars cheaper than most of the former haulers, and the new service includes weekly recycling and trash pickups and two bulk pickups a year.

But Mr. Dooley and the council never effectively made their case, and now they’ve run into a legal minefield. They should pick their way out carefully and try again.

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Here's the surprise ending. The above article was printed in the St. Louis Post Dispatch on Oct. 27, 2008. It reads as if it were printed yesterday.

By Editorial Board, St. Louis Post Dispatch