Contract Garbage and Leachate and Gasification--Oh My! (part II):Rising's 2005 City/Casella Contract Locks Geneva Into Multi-Year Deal

Despite numerous statements that no such contract existed, a 2005 contract (click here to read the contract) signed by former City Manager Rich Rising, released to the public today, locks the City into a 10-year agreement to treat leachate from the Ontario County Landfill.

The contract stipulates that the leachate may be transported to the Doran Avenue (Geneva) treatment plant (WTP) “via truck or sewer line” and that Casella “may elect, at its sole expense, to construct a sewer line to convey leachate directly from the Landfill to the WTP.” It appears that the City is obligated to take the leachate.

The contract goes on to say City may re-negotiate the price, if the City experiences additional operating expenses involved in treating the leachate. The contract also specifies, under the “sampling and monitoring requirements” section, “the leachate will be sampled and analyzed for parameters to be provided by the City.” It would appear that, in light of serious concerns about the composition of leachate directly or indirectly from a new, untested “gasification” process-- also in the works at the landfill—Council ought to take a hard line on those parameters. Specific parameters are not included in the 2005 contract.

Until yesterday, it appears, the City Attorney (David Foster), the City Manager (Matt Horn), and the Director of Public Works (Gordon Eddington), were unaware that such a contract existed. According to local attorney Sam Bonney, Foster’s original response to Bonney’s request for a copy of the contract was that such a contract did not exist. Likewise, an inquiry from Council to the current City Manager turned up no documents. Yet, the day before the Council vote, the contract surfaced on the City’s website.

Where was the contract found and who found it? The public and Council are owed answers. (File that under “TRUST.”) The answers will say much about how well City government is functioning, when in the weeks long build up to a major Council decision related to the leachate, Councilors and staff did not have their hands on a critical document, namely, the current leachate contract.

Our most recent post on the Ontario County landfill, operated by Casella Waste Systems, began with a reminder to our readers that regional awareness and activism are appropriate and, in fact, necessary, to prevent the deal-making that might well lead to the long term environmental degradation of our city and Finger Lakes area. It is an outrage that our elected officials leave it to activists to do the due diligence that ought to be their own, as the elected representatives of the people.

As we emphasized in that post, overall, the best choice the County could make at this point would be to terminate the lease arrangement with Casella altogether! This would return what has become an international garbage extravaganza to its more humble origins as a local municipal waste repository.

After all, what will we do with our own garbage when the County landfill is full, in part, with “long haul volume from both Eastern and downstate markets” (Casella’s own characterization of their work in Ontario County, as documented in this report to their shareholders, page 8).

Hardly likely they’ll dump Cassella, so, it seems the least the County Supervisors could do as stewards of the public interest is to reject ‘gasification’—a Star Wars garbage plant that would serve only to import more garbage from across the galaxy—and for Casella’s profit, not the common good--- and export potentially toxic emissions (at the County’s, which is to say, the tax payers,’ expense).

Sure, the County could make a quick buck on the project, but at what cost—our long term health and safety? This is not exactly a ‘Sophie’s Choice.’ There is no moral dilemma here. The simple answer is that greed must not triumph over common sense.

Likewise with deliberations at the City level—here in the City of Geneva—about treating the landfill’s leachate, from both Ontario County and Seneca County. For years, leachate treatment has been discussed at the City level along the following lines: How much do we charge per gallon treated? How well are we cleaning it before being discharged into the lake? How do we get it from their site(s) to our plant in the most-efficient, least-dangerous way?

But why are we even talking about the how’s when we haven’t ever dealt with the why’s? Underlying all of these concerns is the implicit assumption— implicit and affirmed on a regular basis by former City Manager, Rich Rising, and the current Director of public Works, that the City was somehow legally obligated to accept the leachate. While that turns out to be true, the terms of the contract were never known to Council members and the public until today: the day of the vote. Current City Manager, Matt Horn, who according to the local paper, supports the sewer line for the leachate, has said that he could find no contract, no agreement, not even a gentlemen’s agreement that Geneva has to take the leachate.

Thus Council waded through truck traffic vs. a dedicated sewer line, the cost to treat vs. the amount charged to the source, etc., hammering on the how the City of Geneva might handle the leachate, rather than the critical question, “Should the City of Geneva handle the leachate?”

This explains why, in 2004, City Council unanimously supported a plan for Casella to construct, at their own expense, a dedicated sewer pipe from the landfill to the City line, complete with City-controlled shut-off valves in case of emergency. The idea was to eliminate additional truck traffic generated by the need to haul the material daily from the landfill to the wastewater treatment plant.

This plan culminated in the March 2, 2005 vote to enter into an agreement to treat leachate coming to the city via a dedicated line. Again, from the presentation made at the beginning of the meeting (detailed in the minutes available here), the primary concern was safety of transport and reduction of truck traffic.

The point was then made that this leachate had been coming to the city for years, and this was a new opportunity to deal with it in a safer, less offensive, more efficient manner. It was presented to Council as a way to modify an existing agreement, not a fundamental decision about whether or not an agreement was a good idea in itself.

To be fair, a case could be made that, if charged at an appropriately high rate, the leachate treatment could prove profitable to the City of Geneva. A steady stream of revenue in hard times to help keep taxes down. And it’s true that the City of Geneva has treated leachate for almost 30 years. But what began as part of a local effort at local municipal waste management has morphed, through contracts with private trash importers, into an industrial operation in support of private enterprise.

The total operation brings in less than $150,000/year (see budget page 82) or about 5% of the sewer fees paid by City residents. Total leachate treatment net revenue for leachate received from Ontario County in 2007 was approximately $80,000; for 2008, approximately $118,000; for 2009, so far, about $48,000.

We think it’s an uncontroversial claim that no contamination of Seneca Lake is the only acceptable position. While household waste, the normal ‘sewage treatment’ that such plants are intended for, is not an entirely ‘clean’ process, we think it is also uncontroversial to say that household sewage + landfill leachate is less environmentally-friendly than household sewage alone.

So the question is this: What price tag, if any, do we put on clean water? Is $150,000 our asking price for potential long term contamination? Is any price worth the risk?

Instead, the obligation Council has is to the health and welfare of the people of Geneva, and to some extent the larger region, and that obligation must remain at the forefront of their decision-making. In light of these new disclosures, Council should hold a public discussion on the issue of leachate, but take no action tonight.

Garbage, and Leachate, and Gasification-- Oh My! (Part I)

In September 2003, Ontario County was well on its way towards executing a 25 year lease with Casella Waste Systems that would forever alter the character of the landfill in the Town of Seneca. While not officially ‘privatized,’ because title (and environmental permits) for the dump remain in the County’s hands, what was once a 1,000 ton/day (or less) operation has turned into an international waste operation of over double that amount.

While the article in the Finger Lakes Times at the time focused mostly on the heated exchange between then-Mayoral candidates Don Cass and Vince Scalise and County Supervisor, Don Ninestine, the real ‘meat and potatoes’ of the discussion hinged on an examination of Casella’s track record in other communities and the environmental impacts on the immediate and surrounding area that the change would bring.

Augustine was one of the “audience members” that the paper noted brought information concerning Casella’s lawsuits, missed payments, and environmental infractions in the company’s other host communities. But just two days after that meeting, County Supervisors held their public hearing on the transfer of operations, which was approved shortly thereafter.

Much like the ethanol plant discussions of 2008, Augustine was chided for ‘meddling’ in the affairs of communities outside of Geneva’s borders. After all, she was asked, “Isn’t there enough in this City to worry about without trying to tell other people what to do?” In our opinion, regional thinking has been, and will continue to be a sensible, sound, and smart exercise for City Councilors to engage in. And now, six years later, we see all too well the direct, negative impact provincial thinking can have on a community.

As predicted at that 2003 meeting, the landfill has been expanded at a rate that is unsustainable in the long term. A permit modification in 2007 (which some City Councilors also voiced opposition to) raised the annual cap on dumping over 300,000 tons (from 612,000 to 917,000).

Not only will we run out of space to store other people’s garbage (which is the Casella business model), but we will be forced to pursue other avenues for our own trash. So, while the County may be bringing in millions of dollars from the Casella contract at present, there does not appear to be much contingency planning for the future of solid waste in Ontario County.

Although Casella has not made its most recent large payment to the County (to the tune of $850,000), we do not hold out much hope that County supervisors will determine Casella to have breached the terms of the lease and reclaim management of the landfill. And thus the focus of this series of posts is not on that most-prudent of all options, but rather to look at the other matters under consideration with regard to the Casella enterprise.

In the 1980s, the County landfill was a proposed site for an incinerator. An incinerator, as the name suggests, is a facility that burns trash. It was soundly rejected by the community. What Casella is proposing now is not technically an ‘incinerator’, but rather a ‘gasification’ project—which is expected to heat trash to convert it to gas which they allege could be harvested as energy. But whether it’s heated in an oxygen-rich environment (incineration) or oxygen-poor environment (gasification), the environmental concerns are virtually the same: The byproducts of heating streams of trash are toxic emissions and toxic ash. As if that wasn’t enough of a reason not to proceed, Casella is asking the County to help fund this experimental project, by foregoing the previous lease provision that a first-class hydroponics center be developed.

This site, from another gasification firm in Idaho provides an interesting overview of the concept and concerns.

While the Finger Lakes Times has virtually ignored the issue, much has been written in the Canandaigua Messenger about it, and the Finger Lakes Zero Waste Coalition maintains a robust public information campaign and website with additional information. We will not hold our breath for more local coverage before a decision is made, but in the meantime, check out these links to learn more about the proposed project and the effective, mounting opposition:

Messenger post articles on gasification:
http://www.mpnnow.com/archive/x180634229/Boating-group-opposes-Casella-plan
http://www.mpnnow.com/archive/x549599691/Five-things-you-dont-know-about-the-Ontario-County-landfill
http://www.mpnnow.com/archive/x1092982690/Landfill-operator-will-soon-pay-county


Finger Lakes Zero Waste Coalition: http://www.fingerlakeszerowaste.org/FLZW/Welcome.html

One explanation for the local paper’s virtual silence on the matter may be that of the Geneva City Council, which has not yet taken a position on the issue. With regard to the ethanol scare, City Council had made its concerns about air and water quality clear well before the project had gotten to the point that the proposed gasification plant finds itself at. One worksession devoted to the topic generated a list of additional unanswered questions and concerns. At that meeting, and a subsequent Regular Council meeting, Supervisor Evangelista fielded questions but did not make clear if and when the City Council would be formally consulted on the project. At the April 1st meeting, Evangelista and Mayor Einstein agreed that a joint meeting between City Council and the County Solid Waste committee was in order. Either that meeting has not yet taken place or it was not reported on, but the next Council meeting at which a formal position might be taken is rapidly approaching (May 6th). In our next post, we will discuss the issue of ‘leachate treatment,’ what it entails and what connection the issue has to both the gasification project and the international waste management operations happening to the east (Seneca Meadows) and west (Casella) of the City’s borders. We will also look at how a Council position on the issue might be framed within the larger context of the City of Geneva’s ‘green’ initiatives, spearheaded by the newly formed Green Geneva Committee.

The Price of Democracy: What's a Councilor Worth?

City Councilors and the Mayor are paid employees of the City. Currently, City Councilors are paid $4,000 per year and the Mayor receives $7,500. They have not received a raise in almost a decade. On the one hand, we wonder if they should be paid at all. After all, the School Board, the Planning Board, and the Zoning Board of Appeals are not paid. On the other hand, if there are good reasons for a salary, we wonder what a fair wage would be.

By the end of 2008, the new Council had met over 40 times since being inaugurated on January 1, 2008. To put that in perspective, it’s about a dozen more meetings than the former Council had in 2007, almost twice as many meetings as were had in 2006, and over two times the amount Council met in 2005, when only 18 meetings were held during the entire year.

And not only has the frequency of meetings increased, but the overall time spent in meetings has increased as well. On a rough average, Council meetings in 2008 were about 4 hours in length. That means that City Councilors, assuming they attend every meeting, have logged about 160 hours governing the City, as body.

In addition to the Council meetings and work sessions, Councilors have numerous other responsibilities: e-mails, phone calls, interacting with constituents, attending meetings and events of other groups and committees, reading reports and preparing for meetings, and researching and studying various issues. These activities would fall under “engaged governance,” which was identified by Council as one of its new priorities, described there as what Councilors do “in between meetings.” A truly engaged Councilor, who does all of these things, is likely spending somewhere close to 20 hours/week on City-related business.

So, let’s say a Councilor does only the bare minimum--showing up at meetings (again, we’ll assume perfect attendance). For 2008, this means that Councilors received roughly $25/hour before taxes (none of the positions are eligible for retirement or health care benefits and therefore do not have those items withheld). Someone who makes $25/hour at a full time job would earn, at an annual rate, $52,000/year.

On the other end of the spectrum, someone who is very engaged, well prepared, and committed to serving the public whenever and wherever needed, is being paid at a rate of about $8/hour. That’s comparable to a full time job that pays less than $20,000/year. (But remember that Councilors do, in reality, only receive a total of $4,000 in annual compensation).

Now, let’s look back on 2006, a year when many interesting things were happening in the City, certainly not a bright spot for open and accountable governing. Again, assuming that each of the 20 meetings was about 4 hours long, that means that the ‘bare minimum’ Councilor earned about $50/hour, a rate that would pay over $100,000 as a full time job.

Not too long ago, the Finger Lakes Times reported that the governing board of the Town of Geneva gave itself a sizeable raise. Unfortunately the local paper created a great deal of confusion by stating “Town Councilors” had received an increase and were divvying up a one-time lump sum retroactive payment. The Town of Geneva is governed by a Town Board whose members are called Board Members. The City of Geneva is governed by a City Council whose members (8) are called Councilors and a Mayor who has equal voting rights. To set the record straight, that article was about the Town, not the City.

We’re NOT advocating for a pay raise for City Council. What we want to point out is the disparity in pay for activity and inactivity. Under the previous administration, Council gave most of its decision-making power over to the appointed Manager, and they didn’t even complete the annual performance evaluations that would have given at least a modicum of accountability to the post. This created what we termed an ‘inversion of power’ and it was bad business for Geneva. But with this inversion came less work for Council, and at the same rate of pay, it meant that Council was essentially earning more money for doing less.

It seems that the concept of engaged governance has brought back the notion of ‘public service’ in Geneva. The Councilors are not volunteers, but their compensation seems, for the most part, to be more of a token stipend than a salary commensurate with the work being performed. What do you think?