Garbage rates going up

Sunrise Disposal, which empties your garbage cans each week in Electric City, Grand Coulee, Coulee Dam, and Elmer City, is raising the rates it charges those towns by 15%.

The rate increase, announced in a Jan. 20 letter to the Regional Board of Mayors, comes in response to the Delano Regional Transfer Station’s 33% rate increase, which is being implemented in response to a rate increase at the county landfill near Ephrata.

Sunrise’s and Delano’s increases take effect on April 1.

The individual cities will decide, in the meantime, how much to raise their rates by either raising their rates 15% themselves or choosing to raise their rates less and absorb some of the costs.

If raised the full 15%, the cost of the average 65-gallon garbage can for local residents would go up about $4 to $5 per month.