{"id":92286,"date":"2019-10-08T00:48:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T00:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bayfield-might-raise-rates-to-provide-bear-resistant-trash-cans\/"},"modified":"2019-10-08T00:48:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T00:48:58","slug":"bayfield-might-raise-rates-to-provide-bear-resistant-trash-cans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bayfield-might-raise-rates-to-provide-bear-resistant-trash-cans\/","title":{"rendered":"Bayfield might raise rates to provide bear-resistant trash cans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Brandan
Brandan McCarthy with the city of Durango assembles wildlife-resistant garbage cans. Bayfield is considering adopting bear-resistant trash cans. The Town Board will hear public comment at its Tuesday, Oct. 15, meeting.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

BAYFIELD \u2013 The Bayfield Board of Trustees might switch the entire town over to bear-resistant trash cans, but it will take a rate increase to do so.<\/p>\n

If approved, the rate increase would add $1.49 per month to the town\u2019s current rate, $11.15, for each residence\u2019s first Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee-certified bear-resistant can. The town board will consider the increase at its next meeting, 7 p.m. Oct. 15, and residents will be able to participate during a public comment period.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that we have bear-human conflicts in the town of Bayfield,\u201d said Chris La May, town manager. \u201cI believe that any steps we can take to minimize the conflict is beneficial for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The monthly trash rate would increase from $11.15 to $12.64 for the first can and from $3.39 to $8.49 for each additional can. Monthly curbside recycling rates would stay the same at $6 per month, and residents would still be able to roll the cans out to the curb for weekly collection.<\/p>\n

Bayfield had 17 bear incidents in 2017, according to the Bayfield Marshal\u2019s Office. Law enforcement stopped tracking bear incidents in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis week we\u2019ve had multiple incidents with a bear that seems to be in the downtown area,\u201d La May said.<\/p>\n

When human food is available, human-caused bear mortality can go up. Bears might damage more property and threaten human safety, according to a five-year Colorado Parks and Wildlife study in Durango<\/a>. Adding bear-resistant trash cans dropped trash-related conflicts in Durango by 60%, the study found.<\/p>\n

The board generally approved switching the town over to bear-proof cans during a meeting early in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a bunch of citizens interested in having this option,\u201d said Mayor Matt Salka, and considering the small rate increase, \u201cGosh, it\u2019s pretty darn good in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bear-resistant cans would have gravity-sensitive locks. Bears could chew through them, but the lids would not open if the bear tipped the can over.<\/p>\n

Bayfield has been looking into replacing its garbage roll-out cans with bear-resistant cans since July. The town received two bids for the service and made a five-year contract with WCA-Transit Waste, the lowest qualified bidder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to kill bears,\u201d said Trustee David Black at the September meeting. \u201cThis is an easy, proactive fix.\u201d<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

proposes additional $1.49 per month for containers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5783,5998,5736,5735,5780],"tags":[731,1332,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-92286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bayfield","category-bears","category-local-news","category-news","category-wildlife","tag-bayfield","tag-bears","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92286"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=92286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}