The city of Spokane is enforcing an ordinance that it believes makes it illegal for builders to haul away their own construction waste using certain equipment.


Contractors call the citys position garbage.


At issue are large trucks with roll-off containers. Solid Waste Director Dennis Hein says contractors can use such trucks as long as the container stays on the truck. Once a container is put on the ground, however, Hein says a contractor is operating as an unlicensed garbage carrier, which city ordinance prohibits.


Some contractors dispute that.


None of us are trying to run a garbage route and compete with the city, says Shane Miller, vice president of Divcon Inc., of Spokane. Were just trying to run our jobs in the most efficient way possible.


The city fined Divcon $5,000 earlier this year after the company refused at first to stop using a grounded roll-off container at a tenant-improvement job site on the periphery of downtown Spokane. Shortly thereafter, Divcon placed the container on a truck, and the city waived the fine. Miller says that under protest, the company chose to do as the city demanded rather than fight it.


Our legal counsel doesnt think the city has a legal leg to stand on, but at the time, we werent willing to go to court on it, Miller says.


Divcon has completed the project at which the dispute arose and doesnt currently have any projects under way within the city.


To educate its members on the issue, the Inland Pacific chapter of Associated Builders & Contractors Inc. published an article in its July 2003 newsletter written by Miller about contractors waste-hauling disputes with the city.


Another Spokane company that uses the roll-off containers is Talisman Construction Services Inc., which is involved in specialty demolition and structural concrete and masonry repair.


Talisman President Jess Spencer says the city hasnt fined the company, but representatives of the Solid Waste Department have stopped by job sites, taken pictures of the companys garbage containers, talked to employees, and threatened to take further action. The company has continued to set the containers on the ground and use them, he says.


Talisman works in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, and has used roll-off containers in cities throughout those states. The issue with the containers is unique to the city of Spokane, Spencer says.


In our opinion, they are way out on a limb legally, he says. Were not third-party haulers. Hauling off debris is incidental to our construction contracts.


A city ordinance states that no party other than the city may engage in the business of providing solid waste collection, disposal services, or recycling collection unless they have a municipal solid waste collection franchise. Contractors are in a money-making enterprise on a construction site and thereby are hauling garbage for profit, Hein argues.


He says that before he became director of solid waste in the early 1980s, the city and contractors had an unwritten understanding that contractors could haul their own waste from construction sites via dump trucks or other large vehicles. During his tenure, Hein says, he has considered that informal agreement to be grandfathered in.


Besides, he concedes, contractors frequently have an immediate need to move garbage, and the city might not be able to get there in a timely fashion.


Hein says, however, when roll-off boxes are involved, the city exercises its right to collect garbage.


When you set a garbage container on the ground without any wheels, its a garbage container, he says. We have the very same equipment. We have the very same service.


He adds, Its a very bright line between the grandfathered situation and the regular garbage collection.


Contractors frequently use city garbage services at job sites throughout Spokane, in lieu of and in addition to hauling their own waste. Hein says construction hauling accounts for between 20 percent and 25 percent of the citys total annual activity.


The city loses some tipping revenue when contractors haul garbage themselves and take waste to a private landfill rather than to the waste-to-energy plant.


When it comes to contractors hauling their own waste, however, Spencer contends that the method of garbage collection and transportation shouldnt matter.


If Im generating a profit from solid waste, which Im not on my jobs, Im doing that whether Im using a wheel barrel, rickshaw, dump truck, or a roll-off truck, he says. The city should go after the third-party haulers (who are in violation of the law) and leave the people who are performing a legitimate service alone.


Miller says that by placing its own roll-off container on the ground, a contractor can take a truck to other job sites and use it for something other than gathering trash, thereby helping a company operate more efficiently.


Hein says the city has reviewed its position because of recent complaints from contractorsand doesnt plan to change its stance on roll-off containers.


Were comfortable with where we are in relation to the ordinance, he says.