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NATCHEZ — The Adams County Board of Supervisors has called a special meeting for Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 10 a.m. to meet with representatives of United Infrastructure Services, the county’s garbage collection contractor.

Many county residents have complained for more than a year about the company’s poor service and the more than double price increase they must pay for that service.

County supervisors sent two letters to the company more than four months ago expressing grievances over its shortcomings in meeting its contractual obligations to the county.

Before the United Infrastructure contract, county residents paid $15 monthly for garbage collection. Now, they pay $35 per month for that service, which residents have complained is inconsistent at best.

District 2 Supervisor Kevin Wilson, president of the Board of Supervisors, said the United Infrastructure contracts cost county taxpayers an additional $600,000 per year in addition to individual residents’ rates. The county collects less than 60 percent of the garbage collection costs from county residents.

United Infrastructure was granted the garbage collection contract in a contentious 3-2 vote on March 6, 2023.

In late 2022, the county’s then-garbage collection provider, New Orleans-based Metro Services, filed for bankruptcy primarily to get out of its contracts with Adams County and Jonesville, La., which it had deemed no longer profitable. A Louisiana judge granted the bankruptcy and allowed Metro Services’ owners and managers to form the new company, United Infrastructure, and continue to do business.

Wilson and others have complained the company does not pick up garbage twice per week, and when it does collect, it does so with inadequate and dangerous equipment.

Wilson shared a photo at the county meeting on Monday, which he said was taken on Nov. 8. The photo shows bags of garbage collected in the Elgin neighborhood piled to overflowing in the back of a pickup truck.

“That is not a trash truck. This has been going on for years. It’s either that or a trailer,” Wilson said. “You hear the term leachate all the time. Anything that drips out of that truck is leachate and should not be on our highways. It should be in a real garbage truck, and they don’t have any garbage trucks to speak of. Most of them are broken down.”