People who dispose of trash at Baker Sanitary Service’s landfill near Baker City will pay a bit more under new rates that took effect May 1.

The company increased the public landfill disposal rate by 5%, to $63 per ton. The minimum disposal fee, which last increased in 2022, remains at $20.

Baker Sanitary did not increase garbage collection rates this year.

The company boosted collection rates by 4.8% in May 2023 and by 5% the previous year.

The landfill disposal rate rose by 0.25% in 2023.

Under the company’s franchise agreement with Baker City, Baker Sanitary can increase its landfill or collection rates, or both, by up to 5% on May 1 each year to offset its increased costs.

However, if the company wants to raise rates by more than 5% for either collection or landfill disposal, it needs approval from the city council.

In a letter to councilors, Baker Sanitary Service president Stephen Henry wrote that the landfill rate hikes will help offset higher costs for materials and construction when the company build a new 3-acre lined cell at the landfill.

Those costs rose by 28% during the three years since the previous 3-acre cell was built in 2020, Henry wrote.

Rising costs for fuel, equipment, maintenance and insurance prompted the increases in collection rates in 2023 and 2022, he wrote.

Henry said in an interview on Wednesday, May 15, that the landfill, which opened around 1970, did not have a liner until 2014.

Since then, Baker Sanitary has built three cells — in 2014, 2020 and 2023 — that are lined with a material that prevents polluted water from the buried trash from leaching into the ground.

The liquid is collected in storage ponds where it evaporates, Henry said.

The newest lined cell, which was finished in December 2023, should last for about four years based on current trash volumes, he said.

Baker Sanitary takes garbage not only from Baker County, but also from Union and Wallowa counties.

Henry said the landfill, which is near Sutton Creek about 4 miles southeast of Baker City, one of a few EPA-compliant landfills in Eastern Oregon.

The Haines landfill, for instance, is not lined and has limits on the amount of refuse it can take, Henry said.

He said Baker Sanitary has enough ground permitted through the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to operate the landfill for about 30 more years.

However, the company owns more land, adjacent to the landfill, that could potentially be permitted for trash disposal, although that would require approval from the city, county and state, Henry said.