http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-13754sy0may15,1,247064.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
More imported trash finding its way here
Several proposals seek to increase the amount of out-of-state refuse moving
through Hampton Roads.
BY DAVE SCHLECK
247-7430
May 15 2005
The signs are everywhere - barges
loaded with out-of-state trash are coming to Virginia.
The organization
that handles trash in South Hampton Roads is slowly moving toward accepting
barges carrying New York City garbage to Portsmouth.
A trash company,
Waste Industries USA, is building a new landfill in North Carolina that could
bring a caravan of trash trucks offloading barges in southeastern
Virginia.
Another hauler, Waste Management, hasn't given up plans to
barge waste up the James River to Charles City County.
Out-of-state trash
is nothing new to Virginia. In 2003, the state accepted 6.6 million tons -
enough to fill 60,000 trucks and second only to Pennsylvania. The amount of
imported waste trucked into Virginia has sharply increased in recent
years.
But trash barging is something different. The Old Dominion hasn't
seen barges since Charles City stopped accepting them in 1998 when the Coast
Guard found liquid from the trash leaking into the James River.
Efforts
to stop out-of-state trash have failed. Courts ruled that the Constitution
ensures the free flow of garbage as a form of interstate
commerce.
HAMPTON ROADS BARGES
The latest move toward barging
waste comes from the Southeastern Public Service Authority, which handles
garbage from eight localities, including Suffolk and Isle of Wight
County.
Last year, the authority handled 1.5 million tons of mostly local
trash.
About 40 percent came from private contracts and the rest from
localities.
The authority's two largest private haulers - Waste
Management and Waste Industries USA - have said they will not renew trash
disposal contracts when they expire next year, according to the authority's
staff.
That leaves the authority searching for more trash, and its
accompanying $11 million in revenue, to prevent serious price hikes for
localities.
"We're trying to keep our prices as low as possible by
processing as much waste as possible," said John Hadfield, the executive
director of the authority.
Lisa Kardell, spokeswoman for Waste
Management, said it's premature to say her company is not extending its contract
with the Southeastern Public Service Authority.
"Currently, we're waiting
for a proposal from them regarding our contract in 2006," Kardell
said.
Felicia Blow, the authority's director of public relations and
marketing, said Waste Management rejected the authority's first offer, saying it
would consider a new contract only if other private waste haulers
agreed.
Those haulers haven't been forthcoming.
"It's a vicious
cycle," Blow said.
Another of the authority's customers, Waste Industries
USA, is building a landfill in Camden County, N.C., to accept several thousands
tons of trash a day, said Richard MacManus, an authority board member who is
also on the Board of Supervisors in Isle of Wight County. "They're not quite as
interested in doing business with us if they have their own landfill," MacManus
said.
But Waste Industries USA hasn't closed the door on doing business
with the authority, said Ven Poole, the company's vice president of corporate
development.
"We have a great working relationship," Poole said. "I
anticipate that relationship continuing."
BIG APPLE TRASH
New York
City is petitioning companies interested in taking 5,500 tons of waste a
day.
One of the companies competing for that deal, American Ref-Fuel,
asked the Southeastern Public Service Authority if it would be interested in
accepting 2,500 tons of barged trash every day.
The waste would likely
come into a port in Portsmouth and be trucked to the authority's nearby steam
plant, where garbage is burned to produce energy for the Navy. Other companies
are also competing for New York City trash - including Waste Management, the
company that does business with the authority but that also plans to barge waste
to Charles City.
New York City, embroiled in its own controversy over
where to ship waste, will not decide until next year what company or companies
win the disposal contracts.
The barging might not begin until
2007.
Hadfield said the out-of-state trash business is highly
competitive, the sign of the times being Waste Industries' interest in barging
trash toward Camden County and Waste Management's interest in importing trash to
Charles City County.
"Waste is going to be coming through this port
somehow anyway," Hadfield said.
Not everyone agrees.
Jim Sharp,
executive director of an anti-barging group called Campaign Virginia, said North
Carolina residents are mounting formidable opposition to the Camden County
landfill.
And it's possible that Waste Management may beat out American
Ref-Fuel in the New York City trash competition, which would bring the garbage
to Charles City instead of Hampton Roads.
Sharp said a group like the
authority, which was established to handle regional trash, should not be in the
business of importing garbage.
"We don't think we should be importing
trash to Virginia's ports either to go to landfills in Virginia or in another
state," Sharp said.
MONEY MATTERS
MacManus stressed that the
authority needs to find new business partners to prevent localities from paying
too much for trash disposal. In Isle of Wight County, tipping fees are proposed
to go up to $59 per ton from $46.
Not everyone on the authority's board
is happy with the dollars attached to the American Ref-Fuel proposal.
The
authority's tipping fee for Chesapeake is $59 per ton. But the fee charged to
American Ref-Fuel would be only $32 a ton, said W. Joe Newman, an authority
board member who voted against the barge proposal.
"I have a hard time
explaining to residents of Chesapeake why we should have to pay $59 for a
tipping fee when we accept out-of-town waste for $32," said Newman, who is also
a member of Chesapeake City Council.
The authority burns about half of
the 6,000 tons of trash a day it collects from Hampton Roads.
A portion
of the rest of the waste goes to a landfill in Suffolk. Virtually all the
out-of-state trash would go to the energy plant, which is a greener option than
landfilling the waste, Hadfield said.
CONTAINER SAFETY
MacManus
said the authority would ensure top standards for the
containers.
"They're airtight from top to bottom," he said.
A
spokesman for American Ref-Fuel said the company would abide by the state's
container regulations. But those regulations are in limbo.
An
environmental group called the James River Association won a court battle
challenging Virginia's regulations, which require only that the bottom two feet
of containers be watertight.
The group is currently discussing new
standards with Waste Management, which has not released a schedule for starting
the trash barges to Charles City.
The government process to rework the
regulations could take a year or more.
Congress is also trying to get
involved.
Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Gloucester, has received Gov. Mark
Warner's support on proposed federal legislation that would give states more
leeway to control trash imports, although similar legislation has had difficulty
surviving in Congress.
Whatever scenario plays out with barged trash,
MacManus said, the authority would make sure the operation is as safe as
possible.
"We wouldn't want to put our communities at risk."
Copyright © 2005, Daily Press
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