Request By:
Mr. David R. Reeves
Carter County Attorney
Courthouse
Grayson, Kentucky 41143
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The Carter Fiscal Court has directed you to take legal steps to remove Carter County from the FIVCO Solid Waste District. You say that the district was formed prior to the enactment of Chapter 115 of the 1978 Acts and prior to the enactment of Chapter 63 of the 1974 Acts.
Question No. 1:
"Is there any method for Carter County to withdraw except for KRS 109.095? I understand the district was formed prior to the enactment of Chapter 63 of the Kentucky Acts of 1974."
We assume the multi-county garbage disposal district was established originally under KRS 109.030(2). However, that statute was repealed in 1978 [Acts 1978, Ch. 115, § 15, eff. June 17, 1978]. KRS 109.051 now authorizes multi-county solid waste disposal programs. Two or more counties may now form a solid waste management district. KRS 109.071 and 109.041. Assuming the survival of the original district as such, the problem now is how may one of the member counties withdraw?
The dissolution statute, KRS 109.095, is no help here, since dissolution of the district is not sought. Moreover, that section was repealed in 1978 [Ch. 115, § 15]. Nothing took its place.
KRS 109.020(5) permits modification of contract where two or more counties directly contract to engage in a joint solid waste disposal program. But that statute does not apply where multi-counties form a solid waste disposal district, a separate taxing district. See KRS 109.180.
We are aware of no statute permitting a withdrawal of a county, which originally joined in the creation of the district. Further, there can be no territorial change in the district by way of dissolution or modification of the original agreement to establish the district in the absence of an express statute so providing. Cf. Shelton v. Webster County Soil Conservation Dist., Ky., 377 S.W.2d 81 (1964) 83, relating to the dissolution of a watershed conservation district. That case involved a statute expressly providing for dissolution under certain conditions.
Other questions relate to KRS 109.095, but the statute was repealed in 1978; and we have answered all such questions above.