Kentucky introduces fresh law to safeguard waste recycling industry

By Paul Ploumis

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin has signed a new law, aimed at improving transparency of private solid waste management companies and enhancing protection of the sector. The law HB119 was signed into law on 20th March, 2017. The law will go into effect on July 1, 2017.

The bill was introduced after nearly two years of lobbying and campaigning by the Kentucky Chapter of the National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA). Introduced in Jan 03, 2017, the bill was forwarded to Natural Resources & Energy (H) after three days. It was received by Senate on Feb 23rd and was forwarded to the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee. The bill was passed in third reading by a 22-16 vote on March 7th. Signed by the President of the Senate, the bill was delivered for Governor’s final signature on March 8th.

Further to implementation of the Act, a local government is not allowed to commence solid waste management services that would have the effect of prohibiting a service company from continuing to provide services that it was providing prior to commencement of services by the local government. Further, a local government shall not allot a new franchise for solid waste management services in places where there exists no franchise, without complying to set of requirements outlined in the law. Thus the law prohibits local governments from displacing a current waste service provider without notification and public hearing.

The rules will not be applicable to renewal or replacement of an existing franchise upon expiration. Also, restrictions on local government will not be relevant to urban-county governments in expansion or extension of urban services related to residential waste management services for single-family or two-family dwelling units. However, the county governments are required to hold at least one public hearing and serve written notice to companies no later than 10 days prior to the scheduled public hearing.

According to the law, local governments are required to send written notification by certified mail to the local Kentucky address of the service provider, at least 180 days prior to making a final determination to take any action. The proposed action has to be described in detail. Further, a local government official must be made available to communicate with the service providing company, with regards to economic and employment consequences of the proposed action along with other related issues.

The government must hold public hearing no sooner than 45 days but not later than 180 days following the written notice. The date, time and location of the public hearing must be advertised to the public. A minimum of 30 days must be provided for public and service company to submit their verbal and written comments on the proposed action. Within 60 days from the date of close of the public comment period, the local government must provide a summary of all comments received during the hearing and its response to each comment, which must be made available to the public as an open record.

The new law also proposes defined time schedules for local government to implement action against solid waste management service providers.