Based on recent payments by garbage collectors to Warren County, more people are actively paying for garbage service outside Vicksburg municipal limits.

A $1.25 surcharge is tacked onto residential garbage bills by commercial and private haulers paid monthly or quarterly and income from the payments calculates to 12,334 active accounts — 127 percent more than 18 months ago when Warren County began a slow-but-steady update of its customer database.

Though officials said totals don’t reflect lists sent by five haulers to the county in May under threat of permit revocations —  payments do show compliance with state-set garbage disposal ordinances has improved. Totals also exceed the 10,000 or so housing units in structure outside city limits, according to recent Census Bureau estimates.

Waste Management’s $14,330.04 payment in April indicates about 11,464 customers, the most of any single hauler. Fayette-based Earth Friends Environmental Services, Greenville-based Griffin Waste Services and three individual haulers paid $1,087.50, which breaks down to 870 customers.

Supervisors have revoked the permit of private hauler Billy Drake for not supplying an updated customer list. About 209 of his known customers, many of which were served by his father, Leon, for decades, will be notified by mail and must seek another provider, Board President Richard George said.

“This isn’t hard,” George said. “You just give us your list so we can get the surcharge so we can make DEQ happy,” George said.

Both men owe the county surcharge payments totaling $3,762.50, mostly from archived customer lists from Drake’s route, according to the county.

State law requires counties to monitor all garbage disposal services, whether they are contracted or publicly funded. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality is the enforcement agency. Households must pay the fee as part of their contractor’s bill, take their waste to a landfill themselves if documented or show proof in writing that they have permission to dispose of trash in a commercial receptacle.

The surcharge is retained by the county to reimburse the county’s cost of monitoring and the fund can be tapped by haulers if customers default. In recent months, the surcharge fund has needed infusions of cash from the general fund to remain solvent. More than $67,000 has been transferred to the garbage fund from the general fund during fiscal 2008-09 to cover shortfalls in surcharge payments from garbage haulers.

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Garbage collections

The information is based on lists supplied to Warren County by contract haulers.

January 2008 — 5,420 customers in the database

July 2009 — 12,334 customers in the database 

Info on haulers

Board of supervisors:

601-634-8073

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com