The City of Houston hired an army of sub-contractors to handle the millions of pounds of tree waste left in the wake of Beryl and the Derecho.
While most neighborhoods now have clean and clear curbs (but not everybody), the bill for such help, days after storms, are expensive.
“It’s millions. It’s millions of dollars,” Solid Waste Director Mark Wilfalk told KPRC 2 Investigates.
The city’s solid waste department had neither the manpower, nor the resources, to handle such a daunting job on its own.
Many weeks, that same department struggles to finish its regular garbage and recycling pick-up routes.
The solution to making the department “right sized” as the Wilfalk calls it, is to introduce an extra fee for garbage and recycling service.
Houston is too large not to have one, according to Wilfalk, and services won’t improve in a meaningful way for customers until one is enacted.
“Houston has a choice: you cannot adopt a fee, or we are going to keep having these conversations,” Wilfalk said during a recent interview.
Wilfalk added that his team, along with an outside consultant, is studying what that fee could and should look like, and how it could be charged.
One idea is to make a part of the City of Houston water bills, which have had their own issues.
Wilfalk has no timeline or dollar figure attached to the proposed fee at this point, but the mayor has signaled he is open to hearing about the plan.
Houston City Council would most likely have to approve such a move.