Contractors who collect garbage from Warren County residents will have to have a truck designed and built for garbage-hauling within a year, the Warren County Board of Supervisors decided Thursday.

Other matters taken up during the board’s weekly informal meeting included the spring and summer operating hours of the Kings Point Ferry and a letter from a Greenville attorney representing landowners on Kings Point Island.

Kelly Worthy, county environmental officer, gave supervisors a proposed revision to the rules governing contractors who collect and haul garbage in Warren County.

At present, the regulation says only that vehicles used must be covered, secured and sealed so the refuse being hauled does not fall out.

Citing complaints from county residents about one or two of the private haulers, Worthy proposed changing the rule to require haulers to have “a fully functional vehicle specifically designed to collect and transport refuse and garbage.”

The change continued to say the vehicle must load from the side, rear or front, must be capable of compacting its load and must be able to transport the load without spillage or leakage.

Some of them “spill as much as they collect,” said District 5 Supervisor Richard George. “It’s like they are collecting it with a croakersack with a hole in it.”

In addition to Waste Management, which has trucks and a transfer station here, and Earth Friends Recycling and Disposal of Tallulah, board members said all but two of the private haulers have the specified types of trucks.

“It’s up to you to decide when” the rule will go into effect, Worthy told the board.

“Let’s give them a year from when we send them the notice,” George suggested, winning agreement from the other four supervisors.

The board then instructed Worthy to send the notices out by registered mail and follow that up with a hand-delivered notice as soon as possible.

In discussing the Kings Point Ferry, Road Manager Richard Winans said April 1 is when the board changes ferry operating hours from 4:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Board members said they had heard the farmers who had been operating on Kings Point Island had quit growing row crops and begun planting trees. That, they said, may give the county a chance to reduce ferry operating hours to 12 hours per day during the spring and summer.

The board also discussed the letter from attorney Edward Lamar, who represents Kings Point landowners. The board decided to have board attorney Paul Winfield, Winans and County Administrator John Smith draft a response to be reviewed by the board.