NATCHEZ — Natchez’s next garbage hauler will not house its operations in the city’s former Titan Tire facility, meaning the city will continue to pay approximately $84,000 yearly for security at the unused building.

Despite the city’s contract with Arrow Disposal Services Inc. stating that the hauler could lease office space and store its trucks in the old plant’s warehouse, the company no longer seeks to do so, ADSI representative Jimmie Moore said Friday.

“That’s what I was told earlier this week,” Moore said.

After the city announced potential lease to the tune of $12,000 a year, a few residents from the area surrounding the plant prepared to voice their opposition.

Residents of South Bluebird Drive Eva Dunkley and Deborah Toles Harden, both who said they have lived in the area for decades, as well as owners of a Gayosa Street antebellum house, Deborah and Gregory Cosey, all opposed the having garbage trucks at the plant.

“I will picket out there before I let them come up to my property,” Dunkley said earlier this week.

Dunkley and her neighbors said they had environmental concerns about having the trucks there as well as legal concerns about whether the city gained proper clearance to put the offices there.

After not receiving any notice of the decision, Dunkley said, she felt her area was being “overlooked.”

Natchez Mayor Darryl Grennell, who had spoken with Dunkley about the potential move before it fell through, said he wanted the ADSI offices at Titan Tire to give the city an additional revenue stream to improve waste collection programs.

Not only would the city have received $12,000 a year from ADSI, but it also would save $84,000 in security expenses the city pays to ensure that nothing from the old plant is stolen.

Further, he said the trucks posed no environmental threat in his opinion, while citing his experience as a biology professor at Alcorn State University for more than 20 years

“No, from an environmental standpoint, that’s not an issue,” Grennell said.

Grennell acknowledged that concerns from residents likely contributed to ADSI’s decision to seek a new office, though Moore said he did not know if that directly led to that decision.

With services set to begin June 1, Moore said his company has a representative in Natchez looking into an alternative site. Moore added that the company still projected to have everything ready to go to begin waste collection at the beginning of next month.