Solid waste still a topic

For the third consecutive year the Dutchess County Legislature will be considering a Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP). These plans designate county policy for disposing of trash which by law must be updated every decade. The previous SWMP expired in 2010. Competing visions for management and disposal of waste has delayed adoption. In 2010 the controversy-plagued public authority, the Resource Recovery Agency (RRA), issued its report which suggested major upgrades to the Poughkeepsie-based waste-to-energy plant it manages to a tune of $80 to $110 million. This caused many to balk.Seeking another opinion, the Legislature (with financial assistance from the Dyson Foundation) commissioned a second report in 2011. The findings of that report, in conjunction with the Legislature’s own legislative working group, led us to strip the RRA of solid waste planning authority. Instead we vested SWMP-creation control in the re-established County Solid Waste Department. That department was staffed during the first months of 2012. This month County Solid Waste released its proposed SWMP aptly called, Rethinking Waste. That document is presently the subject of public hearings and should come before the Legislature for a vote in the months ahead.Rethinking Waste acknowledges that the County’s Solid Waste Department is “the largest it has ever been,” and the document advocates growing the department further. It proposes diluting the RRA’s role even more with the county absorbing the RRA’s full-time recycling coordinator, now funded by the RRA. Elsewhere the report asserts the county take a more active role in promoting recycling by education and enforcement.The increased hand of county government in solid waste management is a reoccurring theme of the report. Already the county has stepped up enforcement of solid waste laws including hauler licensing and compliance with separation of recyclable materials, the report claims. That said, the report dances around the enforcement of flow control, which it repeatedly says should be reconsidered. Flow control is the government-enacted mandate forcing haulers to bring county-generated trash to the RRA plant. Critics of flow control argue that the practice stifles the free market by giving favorable treatment to a public authority at the expense of private carters.The report cedes actual recycling to the private market (specifically the new single stream recycling facility in Beacon). The RRA-administered Poughkeepsie-based Material Recovery Facility (MRF) was shuttered in late 2012.Rethinking Waste endorses several ideas advanced by the 2010 RRA SWMP. These include upgrading the turbine at the waste-to-energy plant and siting an ash landfill within the county for the temporary burial of ash until profitable use can be determined. The report also advocates for a feasibility study to consider building a county re-use center.The report argues strongly for the continued use of the waste-to-energy plant, which is a striking divergence from the Dyson-funded report. Therein the county was urged to sell or convert the waste-to-energy plant into a transfer station and shift entirely to a waste export model. The shift in thinking is perhaps mainly due to circumstance.In January 2014 (perhaps earlier) the first of two RRA bonds will expire. This will greatly reduce the cost of RRA operations thereby reducing the annual county subsidy by about $2.8 million. Also in 2014 (June) the service agreement with the plant’s operator will end. Requests for proposals have begun. The new contract is expected to have a more equitable cost and revenue-sharing agreement. These acts should once again make the RRA solvent, thereby eliminating the need for a county subsidy.Michael N. Kelsey represents the people of Amenia, Washington, Stanford, Pleasant Valley and Millbrook in the Dutchess County Legislature. Write him at KelseyESQ@yahoo.com. Read past columns at www.tricornernews.com.