Editorial: VBT getting ready to OK landfill pact

Van Buren Township residents will be paying the bill for their trash pickup if the township board approves the fifth amendment to the Waste Management Host Agreement on the landfill — which it is poised to do.
Under the current agreement, residents get free trash, yard waste, and recycling pickup until the landfill closes. If the new agreement is signed, residents will get free pickup until 2025, when the landfill was expected to close, and then have to pay for it. If the new agreement isn’t signed, Waste Management said the landfill will close and the township will get nothing.
What Waste Management wants to do is close its golf course on Ecorse Road and dump trash there, too. It doesn’t have any use for the golf club building, so it will lease it to VBT for a dollar a year, along with giving the township $5,000 a year to maintain it.
The use of the golf course for trash will expand the Woodlands landfill from its current 269 acres, adding 200 more acres.
Waste Management is heaping funds upon the township to get it to sign up. There’s $8 million cash, plus higher tipping fees, a new grant of $20,000 a year for senior programs, a new $250,000 a year for special projects, plus the grants it used to give, and other money, about $250 million in benefits to the township over the next 40 years. But no free pickup.
The township will discuss the landfill agreement at its Dec. 18 work/study session and its Dec. 19 regular meeting before voting. If you’re interested, come to the meetings and speak up.