Coastal seeks $2/month due to diesel cost rising
By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – Consumers across the nation are already facing the growing problems of inflation and rising gas prices but may be getting hit again in the coming months after the Slidell City Council approved a measure to give a fuel surcharge increase for Coastal Environmental Services (CES).
The final decision won’t come until July 26 after a public hearing is held on the matter.
The $2 a month increase for garbage bills for city residents was approved by the City Council at its Tuesday night meeting after CES President Gus Bordelon said his company has endured diesel prices for its trucks more than doubling, and still going higher.
Bordelon said that when he signed the contract for Slidell garbage service in 2018 the cost for diesel fuel was $2.18 a gallon. This week that price had risen to $5.05 a gallon.
Coastal approached the city of Slidell in April of this year about the increase, and after the supporting documentation was submitted, the matter was put on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.
While Coastal has paid the rising costs for the past two years since President Joe Biden took office, and immediately shut down much of the U.S. oil production that began the rise in gas and diesel prices, Bordelon said that by early this year he couldn’t afford to continue to pay the rising costs.
“I hated to do this for our customers,” he said. “These are painful times for all of us and there is no doubt everybody is feeling the pain at the pump. But we did pay the rising costs for a long time until we finally had to get some relief.”
Bordelon said that his fleet of North Shore trucks is now spending $120,000 per month more than they did in February for diesel fuel.
The current measure states that the city will pay the increase from this past April—approximately $19,600 per month for a total of $78,400, until August when Slidell residents will begin seeing a $2 increase on their bills.
Not every council member believed the cost should be passed onto residents, however, after discussion on the issue the measure passed at the Tuesday meeting, moving it to the public hearing in July.
Coastal services the cities of Slidell, Mandeville, Covington and Picayune, as well as the parishes of St. Tammany, LaFourche and Jefferson. Bordelon said they approached all their customers about getting help with the skyrocking fuel costs and all approved the increase, other than St. Tammany Parish.
Parish President Mike Cooper responded and said that the parish originally signed the contract in 2020 with Coastal for a monthly pickup cost of $19.90. Coastal requested an increase in August of 2021 due to COVID-related garbage totals going extremely high and was approved for a $22.40 monthly bill.
However, their request in April of 2022 for a $1.86 per month surcharge due to diesel costs going through the roof was denied by Cooper.
Garbage companies have a clause in their contract that allows them to ask for increases when there are “unforeseen changes in the cost of operation.” However, Cooper denied the request to Coastal, even though the increase would have likely been passed on to consumers.
“While we understand that businesses are having to deal with increased costs, we also realize that our citizens are having to deal with those same increased costs. Therefore, we approved the first increase and rejected the second,” Cooper remarked.