September 2005 will mark the 20th anniversary of the town’s involvement (and the conclusion) in NESWIC. NESWIC is the Northeast Solid Waste Compact and is an organization of 23 communities who banded together in the early eighties to build a trash to energy incinerator in North Andover. The motivation behind such a grand scheme was the state’s insistence that the communities should think longer term regarding the disposal of trash because for environmental reasons landfills were going to be shutdown throughout the commonwealth.
The communities took the state at its word and went about the complex task of negotiating a compact that enabled the organization to float bonds, build a huge plant and hire an operator. There was much optimism at the time in that this was a forward looking idea that would solve the communities disposal problem while reducing costs via the sale of the electricity produced by the plant as well as contribute to reducing the dependence on foreign oil by having more non oil produced electricity available.
A variety of events conspired to make those rosy predictions just that, to rosy. The state did not shut down landfills and therefore a cheap disposal alternative was still available to both communities and business. The predictions of energy prices and subsequent electricity sales were to optimistic and coupled with that was expensive environmental upgrades at the plant made the whole investment quite an expensive one for the towns.
I won’t go into the entire 20 history of the expenses but will give you an indication of the impact of finally getting out of this deal by showing you this years tipping fee comparison. As a member of the compact, the town had to guarantee annual tonnage delivered to the plant (11,000) and had to pay a tipping fee of $162/ton whether or not we actually delivered that much tonnage or not. After the conclusion of the deal the town will now participate in a five-year market rate contract beginning at $64/ton based only on the amount of tonnage we actually deliver. According to Robert Mercier, Burlington’s Town Administrator that will result in an annual savings in the trash budget of approximately 1 million dollars.
How this has been accomplished is by leaving the compact, the 23 communities were then able to go back to the operators of the plant and negotiate a new deal. After all where was Wheelabrator going to get 200,000 tons of trash? The new deal begins at $64 and increases to $72 per ton over the five-year life of the contract.
There are two additional favorable events relative to the trash budget. It was thought when the program began, that the recycling costs to the town would be off set by sales of the paper cans, and bottles that the town collected. Unfortunately as municipal recycling became more and more common throughout the state and nation the supply of these products far outstripped the demand and the development of markets for it. That has now turned around somewhat with large emerging economies in Asia contributing to the demand for these items.
The second item has substantially more positive impact. The towns that participated in the NESWIC compact had a fund set aside as a stabilization account to offset volatility in the tipping fee. That number turns out to be approximately 2 million dollars for Burlington. Mr. Mercier is aware that there will be competing interests for that money however he is inclined toward convincing the town that the bulk of that money should go to the stabilization account to prepare for upcoming capital expenditures.
