Starting Friday, the city\u2019s Solid Waste Division will be footing the $150 disposal fee for residents who want to scrap their junked vehicles at Skookum Sales and Recycling. <\/p>\n
The city recently signed a contract with Channel Construction, Skookum Recycling\u2019s parent company, agreeing to pay the disposal fee for up to 400 vehicles, totaling $60,000. Though this solution isn\u2019t cheap, it\u2019s necessary if the city is to abate the growing number of abandoned vehicles, according to Solid Waste Coordinator Jim Penor. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf we did nothing with the vehicles, we would have a junk car problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first time that Channel Construction and the city have worked together to take care of Juneau\u2019s junked cars. For years, the city partnered with the company to hold two car collection roundups per year. The city would pay for the vehicle disposal fees \u2014 like it will starting Friday \u2014 and Skookum Recycling would take care of the cars. <\/p>\n
These roundups stopped in 2010 when the price of scrap metal was high enough for Skookum Recycling to stop charging a disposal fee. The price of metal stayed high enough for the company to cover its scrapping costs until last year, when it started having to charge the $150 disposal fee. Even with the fee, scrapping cars was \u201ckind of a break-even deal,\u201d according to Dave Payne, Channel Construction\u2019s compliance coordinator. <\/p>\n
Scrapping a car comes with some costs. Billie-June Tonsgard works as the general manager at Skookum Recycling and oversees the scrapping process. Tonsgard and her staff have to remove the tires and drain the fluids \u2014 gasoline, antifreeze, oil, etc. \u2014 from each car that is to be scrapped. Skookum Recycling has to pay special fees to dispose of the tires and gas they remove from each car because neither can go in Juneau\u2019s landfill. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s outrageous how much it is to get rid of that stuff,\u201d she said, explaining that the last gasoline disposal bill she paid was close to $10,000. <\/p>\n
Both the tires and the gas are shipped out of Juneau to recycling centers on Alaska Marine Lines. The scrapped cars go to Seattle, and that shipping isn\u2019t cheap either, Payne said. Skookum Recycling doesn\u2019t charge a disposal fee for vehicles without tires or gas in their tanks. <\/p>\n
Necessary though it may be to cover costs, the disposal fee had an unintended consequence, Penor said. It deterred many people from disposing of their junked vehicles in the proper manner. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnce Skookum started charging the $150 fee, cars would mysteriously be pushed out in the street or left in parking lots where the city or the police had to deal with them,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Erann Kalwara, a spokesperson for the Juneau Police Department, corroborated Penor\u2019s observation. In 2014, JPD impounded 66 abandoned vehicles. In 2015 \u2014 the year that Skookum Recycling started charging its disposal fee \u2014 that number nearly doubled, jumping to 114. <\/p>\n
Penor hopes that the city-funded scrapping will help cut down on the number of cars being left in Juneau\u2019s streets and parking lots. Ironically, however, the city has been paying to scrap Juneau\u2019s junkers all along, Kalwara said.<\/p>\n
Currently, the police department has to pay to tow abandoned vehicles to its impound lot, where they sit until officers determine what to do with them. JPD sends \u201cmultiple letters to the last registered owner\u201d before it ultimately sends them to the scrapyard, again paying for the towing. On top of the towing costs, JPD has to pay the disposal fee once it gets the cars to Skookum Recycling. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt does get quite expensive,\u201d Kalwara said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of time and money involved in that process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penor\u2019s new program will allow residents to drop off their vehicles at the Skookum Recycling any time between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The program is for personal vehicles only, including motor homes and travel trailers so long as their graywater tanks and refrigerators have been removed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just the right thing to do to stay on top of the junk vehicles, so we don\u2019t have a problem,\u201d he said. \u201cAn ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we just stay on top of it, we won\u2019t have a junk vehicle problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Starting Friday, the city\u2019s Solid Waste Division will be footing the $150 disposal fee for residents who want to scrap their junked vehicles at Skookum Sales and Recycling. The city recently signed a contract with Channel Construction, Skookum Recycling\u2019s parent company, agreeing to pay the disposal fee for up to 400 vehicles, totaling $60,000. Though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-3306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3306"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}