BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Kern County residents could see an increased waste management service fee as Kern County Public Works complies with Senate Bill 1383. SB 1383, which passed in 2016, is meant to reduce emissions across the state and curb the impacts of climate change in California.
SB 1383 mandates that Kern County Public Works must reduce organic materials in landfills by 75 percent and implement a new trash separation system for residents across the county by July 1.
KCPW Director Chuck Magee says household waste sorting will be a 3-step process.
"The three-cart system allows people to take organics into their green cart, which is your grass, anything that's in your salad that's left over, that type of thing, and put it in that green cart. Tree trimmings, bushes, that type of thing. They'll also have the blue cart for their recyclables, their cardboard, their paper, things like that, that can go into the recyclables, and of course the brown cart for everything else," said Magee.
According to Magee, the Kern County Board of Supervisors must approve the KCPW plan at their next meeting on May 23 to move forward with implementation by the state-mandated July 1 deadline.
If the board does not approve the plan, it will delay implementation, and the county could face fines from the state beginning retroactively from January 2022 until now for noncompliance.
Kern County residents have expressed concerns about KCPW's new program, saying they were left out of the planning process, and the cost to implement this program creates additional expenses that will be added to property taxes.
"The county is trying to put that on the property tax rather than charge it in quarterly bills, and that's really hard on a lot of people because that ultimately is something that kind of puts their home in danger," said Ashley Fike, who is helping to organize the formal protest against the KCPW's plan. "It kind of uses their home as collateral for their solid waste bill."
Fike says the charge proposed by KCPW especially harms low-income, elderly, and disabled residents in rural communities, and anyone on a fixed income.
Magee explains that the most significant impacts will come to those who don't have a trash service already and self-haul their materials.
"What they're really paying for is the service to take that material to a landfill, take that material to a recycler, and then bury the trash, recycle or compost the organics, so they're getting a lot of services for that price," said Magee.
According to Magee, residents can still self-haul if they choose, but he believes the cost of hauling versus the trash service will be about the same. However, he also says that the state has already given the county an extension on implementing SB1383, waiving the current fines, but if implementation delays continue, the county could see fines accumulate from last year, meaning that residents could still see upcharges, but without gaining the additional services.
"Should we fail to meet that deadline, they can literally go back to January 1st of 2022 and start implementing fines from that day forward, which could be a massive quantity of money," said Magee.
Magee says public works recommended charges for unincorporated communities in the county to the Board of Supervisors totaling almost $560 per household in additional annual property taxes in eastern Kern County, nearly $370 more per year in unincorporated areas of Bakersfield, and close to $530 per year for the unincorporated areas of western Kern County.
Fike says that in response to this proposal, people have written around 1,200 protest letters. The group needs a total of 8,600 protest letters by the next Kern County Board of Supervisors meeting on May 23.
"We're hoping ultimately, regardless of the number of letters we are able to secure, we are really hoping that we can convince the board of supervisors through the power of numbers, through the power of not having been involved in the first place," said Fike.
Magee says these changes impact residents in unincorporated areas of Kern County, and city residents have already seen waste management changes implemented in their respective cities.
