County drops plans for a United Sanitary District

Fairfax County’s proposal for a Unified Sanitary District is dead, at least for the time being.

A notice posted by Public Works and Environmental Services says, “The county has withdrawn the USD proposal and is taking no further action.”

The USD concept, which called for the county to administer trash service for all single-family residents in a defined area, was met with strong opposition from residents, HOA leaders, and private trash haulers.

Related story: HOA leaders oppose a USD

PWES Director Chris Herrington told the Board of Supervisors’ Environment Committee on May 12, “Absent further direction, staff is ending all work on the Unified Sanitary District model.”

“We’ve heard from our stakeholders on the USD pretty clearly that this is not the model we want to move forward,” said committee chair Dalia Palchik (Providence).

“I don’t think it got a fair airing, despite the efforts that staff made to make sure citizens understood what it meant,” said Board Chair Jeff McKay. “It would have solved some things that people complained about, such as ‘why are there 15 trash trucks on my street?’”

Related story: BoS will consider alternatives to a USD

“It was a missed opportunity,” McKay said. “It went south for communications reasons, because it was hard to explain to people and because of all the state hoops we had to jump through.”

Had the BoS decided to authorize a USD, there would be a five-year waiting period before it could take effect.