HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Guam Solid Waste Authority is experiencing a delay in the delivery of garbage trucks, and is trying to keep the existing fleet patched together until the new trucks arrive, the authority’s general manager said.
The delivery of three large diesel trucks, which were supposed to arrive in July, has been delayed until September, GSWA General Manager Irvin Slike said during an agency board meeting July 27.
Three electric trucks – two initially expected in July and the third in August – also won’t arrive until September and into October.
“If you see increased spending on the maintenance of vehicles, it’s because we have to keep our fleet sort of Band-Aided together until we can get the newer trucks,” Slike told board members at the meeting, adding that GSWA had to take some compactor parts from a vehicle “graveyard” at the Layon Landfill to put on one of the working trucks.
The three diesels are MultiPack trucks, which can be loaded from the rear and can have automated loading arms, according to Slike. The electric trucks are smaller and are strictly rear-loaders, to be used on narrower roads and rural roads.
GSWA also is seeking four more large diesel trucks – two dedicated rear packers and two automated loaders – “just because the MultiPack is apparently not manufactured anymore,” Slike said during the meeting. That would put the total at 10 new trucks.
The four additional diesel trucks may come in during the second or third quarter of 2024, Slike told the board.
The general manager took charge of the agency in late 2021. He previously said that a regular replacement schedule for the trucks would have prevented high maintenance cost issues related to garbage collection.
GSWA does currently have a rate petition before the Public Utilities Commission, Guam’s rate-setting panel. The petition proposes to raise the residential rate from $30 per month to $35 monthly in 2024. Increases for the commercial and government rates also were proposed. Rate hikes will, among other things, help the agency put aside money to plan for future truck replacements, Slike has said.
Garbage trucks are parked at the Guam Solid Waste Authority Harmon Transfer Station in the Harmon Industrial Park on May 18, 2023.
