Botetourt County officials could close the lid on a smelly subject Tuesday when the board of supervisors votes on whether to lengthen the service contracts with the county's private trash haulers.

A new proposal before the board would extend the contracts for the county's five private haulers by three years to 2012, with a provision for another two-year extension if the board is happy with the contractors' performance. The haulers' current seven-year contracts are scheduled to end in June 2009.

A contentious relationship between the county and the garbage contractors started in November when Botetourt brokered a deal with Salem. Under the arrangement, Botetourt will start sending its residential and commercial refuse to Salem's solid waste transfer facility beginning next month. Salem has a contract with Waste Management Inc., which hauls the trash to a landfill in Amelia County.

In conjunction with the new agreement, supervisors also voted last year to increase the monthly trash rates that the haulers charge residents and businesses.

Starting March 1, residential trash pickup will increase by $3, from $18 to $21 a month. Commercial rates will rise from $4.20 to $5.50 per cubic yard collected a month.

The eight-year relationship with Salem runs through June 2016. It will cost the county about $105,000 a year and alleviate the county's need to build its own transfer station, according to the plan.

The five private haulers who held contracts with Botetourt weren't thrilled with the news of the Salem agreement. Some haulers called the rate increases a minimal one that may not cover their extra expenses for taking the county's trash the extra distance to Salem.

The haulers had asked for -- but were denied -- a contract extension last year by the county's board of supervisors.

The haulers wanted the extension in order to have more time to recoup the anticipated increase in their expenses.

Buchanan District Supervisor Terry Austin said last year he wanted the county to monitor the contractors' performance for a while before renegotiating a new contract.

Austin and Amsterdam District Supervisor Steve Clinton was among county officials who recently listened to the haulers' concerns and determined that the contractors may be justified in needing the contract extensions to absorb the added transportation costs.

"We did concur with the haulers that there's been some substantial change to their procedures, which warranted ... some capital investment," he said.

One of the haulers, Rebecca Kelley of Kelley's Collection, said the extra 15 miles per trip to the Salem facility will add about an hour to her company's daily collection schedule. The company picks up trash in the Amsterdam, Fincastle, Haymakertown and Lithia sections of the county.

Kelley said the family-owned company will convert its vehicles from gasoline to diesel, and will likely purchase up to three newer-model trucks to get better fuel mileage and have improved power to deal with the extra mileage and additional traffic along U.S. 11 to get to Salem.

"That will be a big help," if the contract is extended, she said, giving the company more time to amortize its new equipment.

Botetourt County's landfill is projected to be at capacity some time near the end of this year. The county has decided that state regulations make expanding the landfill impractical because of poor subsurface conditions at the site. County officials have said they spent most of last year investigating more than 60 sites as possible locations to build a county transfer station, but none was compatible. County officials also talked to the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority about a possible trash deal, but ultimately decided that the Salem option was more economical.

Also included in the proposal to come before the supervisors at their 9 a.m. meeting Tuesday at the county administration building is a provision that allows the haulers to discontinue service to customers whose accounts haven't been paid in more than 60 days.

"We felt like we needed to make sure that there was no question about their authority to do that," said David Moorman, one of Botetourt's deputy county administrators. "We don't expect them to provide a service to someone who's not paying for it."