Resilient Goshen: Maintaining the Environment Has a Cost

GOSHEN, Ind. — Some people are fond of the saying, “Freedom isn’t free.” I think the saying conveys the idea that “freedom” requires a certain amount of maintenance to remain intact. And, as the saying indicates, maintenance has a price: It isn’t free. Maintaining the environment is no different.

Valuable things all require maintenance for them to continue to fulfill their function, operate to capacity or bring us joy. This is true of houses, relationships, vehicles, tools, institutions, infrastructure and just about anything else that we find precious. This includes the environment, the natural components of the earth that we rely on for our lives, even in urban settings. Water, soil and air, all in combination with the sun, provide us with everything we need to live.

There is no other source of sustenance for us than the plants and animals that our earth environment nurtures. If we fail to maintain the environment, its functions begin to fray. And this maintenance has a cost.

We understand these ideas. There is nothing new in these statements.

Maintaining the Environment Comes With a Cost

What is new in Goshen is an Environmental Services Fee for garbage and recycling service, which the City Council adopted unanimously, 7-0, on Monday, Aug. 24. The fee also supports brush and yard waste collection and operation of the Goshen Environmental Center, which processes those materials.

None of the councilors, the mayor or other City administrators wanted to take this step. City Council members, the mayor and other City administrators carefully weighed, discussed, researched and talked through the decision over many months, with input from many people with deep knowledge and/or deep feelings.

Indiana Senate Enrolled Act 1 (SEA 1), passed by the state Legislature in 2025, deeply impacted municipal budgets across Indiana.

Goshen’s municipal budget is no exception. The SEA 1 revenue reductions have pulled millions of dollars from our coffers. These are the dollars the City uses to pay police officers and firefighters; fix roads; pay for lawn mowers and skilled engineers; provide diligent bookkeeping and thoughtful office reception; supplement cost-share sidewalk replacement and tree removal and replacement programs; and pay for trash removal, recycling and brush pickup. They are also the dollars the City would have used to replace the Shanklin swimming pool, a project now on indefinite hold.

Without the money to pay for these services and projects, money that SEA 1 stripped away, something had to give.

The Environment Has Never Been Bottomless

Historically, we have often treated the environment like a bottomless garbage pit for cheap waste disposal. If we need to flush something away, we put it in running water. When we need a place for our trash, we designate some acres and start dumping. And when the fuel we burn is toxic, there is plenty of space in the sky to receive it. The environment has frequently been utilized as an easy solution to tight budget dilemmas.

Of course, the environment isn’t endless or bottomless, any more than the vast North American forests were or the oceans are. Goshen has come a long way in respecting and preserving the environment.

For example, leaf burning in Goshen was banned years ago because of the poor air quality the practice created. City dumps at Shanklin Park, and at Rogers Park before that, were closed because trash was becoming hazardous. We have been making decisions about our environment for decades and will continue making these decisions for centuries because if we don’t maintain our environment, it will not be able to maintain us.

Paying for the Services We Rely On

In the wake of revenue reductions from SEA 1, the City faced a difficult question: How do we continue paying for the services residents rely on every day to maintain their homes and neighborhoods?

For a long time, Goshen has paid for waste removal, both household and green waste, from our general fund because we considered it an important component of quality of life. And we could afford to do so. In that respect, Goshen was unusual. Most cities and counties throughout Indiana have for years charged residents directly for these services or required them to contract with a private provider, often at a much higher cost.

The City will still organize and manage these services, but starting Jan. 1, 2027, residents will pay an increasing portion of the cost directly through their water and sewer utility bills. Even then, residents will not cover the full cost, as these services cost the City about $23 per month per household.

The new fee will be phased in over two years, starting at $7 per residence in 2027 and increasing to $14.50 in 2028. Any additional increase would require City Council approval in 2028 based on costs and other available data at that time.

What the Environmental Services Fee Will Fund

While there are many environmental initiatives, such as expanded tree care, that could benefit from additional funding, the Environmental Services Fee will not fund them. The fee supports only the practical work of trash and recycling collection, brush and leaf pickup, access to the Environmental Center and other yard waste services.

For some of us, this will be a big change, even a shocking change. The City Council is considering creation of a relief fund to help residents for whom this fee is overwhelming. We will need to help each other make this adjustment because we all create waste, and all of it has to be absorbed by the environment somewhere, in some process.

Our waste has a real cost, and budget cuts have exposed it.

The environment isn’t free.

Aaron Sawatsky-Kingsley serves as Goshen’s director of Environmental Resilience and joined the City as its first urban forester in 2006. Readers can find this column bi-weekly on Saturdays in The Goshen News(opens in new tab).