City seeking hauling bids for garbage

Posted 4/22/14

Previously, the city was strongly leaning toward having Dick Jones Trucking of Powell haul its solid waste to a city-owned landfill in Billings, Mont.

A handout at the March 17 meeting listed DJT as the hauler and listed its price as $630 …

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City seeking hauling bids for garbage

Posted

The city of Powell is shifting gears on a hauling contract.

The city will seek bids on hauling its municipal solid waste to a landfill. A legal notice in today’s paper announces that bids will be accepted for the hauling contract until 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 30. City Administrator Zane Logan said the request for bids was on the city website by 9 a.m. Monday.

Previously, the city was strongly leaning toward having Dick Jones Trucking of Powell haul its solid waste to a city-owned landfill in Billings, Mont.

A handout at the March 17 meeting listed DJT as the hauler and listed its price as $630 round-trip. The total contract would have been around $193,000, including wear and tear on the trailer. That is the lion’s share of the expected $321,943.90 annual cost to take the urban waste to Billings, which is offering a tipping fee of around $26 per ton, far less than the price proposed by the Park County Landfill.

But questions from the Powell Tribune last week caused Mayor Don Hillman and Logan to pull a discussion on agreeing to a contract with Billings from Monday’s City Council meeting agenda. The paper asked why no other trucking firms were asked or allowed to submit bids on the contract.

Logan said in March and again last week that Dick Jones was the only company interested in the hauling contract, but two other companies, Tri-Bell Industries Inc. of Powell, and Pab Good Trucking LLC of Greybull, said they wanted to submit bids.

In January, Dick Jones, Tri-Bell and Pab Good all bid on proposals to haul the solid waste to landfills in Casper and Cody.

Dick Jones submitted the lowest bid for hauling to the Park County Landfill, offering a price of $270 per trip for one year. It did not submit quotes for a three-year or six-year contract.

Tri-Bell offered a price of $532 per load for one year, $546 over three years and $573 over a six-year period.

PAB submitted a bid of $650 for one year, $715 for three years and $767 for six years.

The prices were much higher, of course, for hauling the solid waste to Casper, since there is about a 400-mile difference round-trip between Casper and Cody.

Tri-Bell offered the lowest prices for the Casper trip, quoting a price of $1,037 per trip in the first year, $1,063 for three years and $1,116 for six years.

Dick Jones once again only submitted a bid for one year, and offered to take Powell’s garbage to Casper for $1,200 per trip. PAB had the same quote for a one-year deal, but increased it to $1,320 per trip for a three-year agreement and $1,416 for six years.

The council took no action on hauling the MSW to either location, and the city soon focused its attentions on Billings. Two city staffers went to the Montana city in March and when the Billings City Council set an out-of-county-and-state rate on April 14, Logan said city staff was planning to recommend that as the city’s new landfill.

But the hauling problem slowed that down.

Logan said the landfill decision has also been tabled for now.

“That’s for the mayor and council to decide,” he said.

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