Winneshiek County is being asked to be the financial agent in cases involving hazardous waste clean-ups

If there is a spill of hazardous materials in Winneshiek County or the rest of Northeast Iowa, specially trained firefighters from the Waterloo Fire Department are called to handle the situation.

Sometimes after the cleanup is finished, there's a legal battle over whose fault the accident was.  That means the Waterloo Fire Department sometimes has to wait for a long while to get paid for its work.

Now the fire department has contacted the NE Iowa Response Group, which is made up of 11 NE Iowa counties, to ask if the counties wouldn't pay the fire department right away and then take over the job of collection agents.

A special meeting of representatives from the 11 counties will be held on Thursday.  Winneshiek County supervisors discussed the request on Monday, but took no action.