VIROQUA, Wis. – The Viroqua City Council approved a bid for waste hauling services for the next three years at its regular monthly city council meeting on Tuesday, November 1. The city’s contract with Southwest Sanitation (Now owned by GFL Environmental) was due to expire at the end of the year and the put a Request for Proposals (RFP) out last month.
City Administrator Nate Torres said there were a number of potential haulers that made inquiries but only two companies submitted bids. They were GFL Environmental and Harters Quick Clean-up of La Crosse. Bids number 3 and 4 were eliminated because they were for source separated recyclables and the council did not want to increase costs dramatically or make residents switch to separated recycling, so they decided to stay with commingled recycling. That left bids number one and two for consideration. The council wanted to stay with every other week recycling pickup as it is now and that narrowed the choice to bid number 2. As the chart below shows the GFL bid was significantly lower than the Harter bid at $9.50 per resident versus $16. That was based on 1850 residential pickup locations in the city. The GFL bid also included a provision that they will provide free city pick up for most city building and parks. The council approved GFL number of two by a unanimous vote.
Some council members did ask if there could be specific provisions in the final contract regarding volumes and enforcement of a Memorandum of Understanding that the city recently signed with the Vernon County Solid Waste facility that said the city agreed to send its waste to the county in exchange for rebate on their tipping fee. Under that arrangement the city will pay the county directly for the tons of waste it sends there and will only pay the hauler for hauling services. That tipping fee the city will pay directly to the county is reflected in the $3.14 charge per household added to the cost of hauling below.
Alderperson Tanja Birke asked that the contract spell out how that MOU will be enforced to ensure the city volumes are in line with the past volumes. That contract with GFL will come back to the council at the November 14 Council meeting.
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