PORTSMOUTH — The City Council took its first steps Tuesday toward agreeing to be home to a trash port that would handle 2,500 tons of New York City garbage a day.

Council members unanimously approved a resolution to begin negotiations with private trash company, American Ref-Fuel, but said they also plan to continue looking into the proposal to bring garbage by barge to the city. The sealed containers of household trash would be transferred to trucks and carried to local disposal facilities or to a new landfill in Camden County, N.C.

“This is just giving management an opportunity to look deeply into this,” Mayor James W. Holley III said.

Portsmouth would make more than $1 million annually off the trash deal .

But first New York City must choose American Ref-Fuel to haul away its trash. The company is one of several bidding on the job.

The agreement to begin negotiations with American Ref-Fuel would strengthen the company’s bid to New York City, which is due Friday, said Portsmouth Chief of Staff John B. Maher .

New York most likely won’t make its decision until this summer, said John Hadfield, executive director of the Southeastern Public Service Authority. The agency handles most of the region’s trash, and would partner with American Ref-Fuel on the project.

The company is considering two sites in Portsmouth – the part of the Portsmouth Marine Terminal used by Maersk Sealand and the former Allied site next to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard – and at least one location in Chesapeake for the proposed private trash port.

According to the company’s plans, 125 to 300 containers of trash would arrive each day. Officials have described the process as clean and odor-free .

City officials said there are still many questions that need to be answered. Chief among them is whether the proposed $1 to $1.25 per-ton fee paid to the city would be enough to make up for the additional truck traffic on local roads.

“This is no final decision on anything – they are exploring the possibilities,” said councilwoman Marlene Randall. She and several other council members said they would hold a public hearing about the issue.

Councilman Charles B. Whitehurst Sr., a member of the trash agency’s board, said moving ahead may actually protect Portsmouth. Under the agreement, the city would be able to designate a truck route for the trash.

If a company began shipping containerized garbage into another one of the region’s existing ports, the city would have no a bility to control traffic or operations there, Whitehurst said.

“What we’re trying to do is control the situation,” he said. “Because by law, it could happen without us.”

Reach Meghan Hoyer at 446-2293 or meghan.hoyer@pilotonline .com.