CHESAPEAKE
SPSA adopted the highest trash-disposal fees in the nation Wednesday as part of a financial rescue plan for the troubled waste authority.
Effective immediately, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Franklin, Isle of Wight County and Southampton County will pay $170 to dispose of each ton of household garbage they generate. The five localities paid $104 per ton earlier this year, and $57 two years ago.
Virginia Beach and Suffolk are exempt from the rate hike since their "tipping fees" are capped under separate agreements with the Southeastern Public Service Authority.
The increase was expected to go higher - to as much as $245 per ton. But local leaders have been meeting feverishly for weeks to work out a compromise to minimize the hike and also keep SPSA from going bust.
The regional waste agency, created in the 1970s to handle trash and recycling in South Hampton Roads, is more than $240 million in debt and is not generating enough revenue to cover its expenses this year. About 40 percent of its annual budget is dedicated to paying down old loans.
SPSA and its board of directors are expected to meet again May 14 to vote on the final pieces of the rescue plan. They include lines of credit with a bank, deferred payments to the city of Virginia Beach and new bond arrangements with the Virginia Resources Authority, a state lending agency.
Also Wednesday, SPSA's executive director, Bucky Taylor, outlined a proposed budget for next fiscal year, which begins July 1. Taylor said tipping fees will likely remain at $170 per ton through June 30, 2010.
That could change, though, if SPSA sells its trash-burning power plant and another waste facility, both in Portsmouth, to a private company. Two firms are bidding for the assets with a deal expected later this year.
The next highest tipping fees in the country are in Harrisburg, Pa. A waste authority there endorsed a disposal rate of $169 per ton, though the action created such acrimony that it is being challenged in court.
SPSA employees will not receive pay raises in fiscal 2010, Taylor said. The agency already has cut its work force by about 17 percent, or 85 fewer positions compared to last year, mostly through early retirements and layoffs.
SPSA intends to spend $18 million next year to upgrade and maintain its facilities. It will not borrow money to do so, Taylor said, but will use cash that was supposed to go to Virginia Beach.
About $10 million will pay for improvements to the Portsmouth power plant, with the rest going for other capital projects, Taylor said.
The regional landfill in Suffolk, which SPSA owns, is expected to run out of space in 2013. An expansion project, called Cell 7, is estimated to cost $24 million to $30 million and would provide storage space through 2018. But SPSA is setting aside only $2.2 million toward that effort, Taylor said.
With capacity running low for household trash, SPSA decided not to lower its fees for accepting construction and demolition debris at the Suffolk landfill, as had been proposed.
The board instead voted to keep the rate for such inert wastes, including chunks of brick, concrete and drywall, at $30 per ton. Taylor said it was more important to preserve landfill space for municipal garbage instead of trying to make extra money from construction rubble.
Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com
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And you are?
Thanks Gypsy, but your self serving comments about a company with a telephone, a web site, and a great lawyer have been about obviously tainted as I have ever seen on this web site. Perhaps you would care to identify yourself. Until you do, I frankly will ignore your comments, especially in view of the fact that you are so poorly informed. First, those who serve on the board of directors are not employees of SPSA. Seven are elected officials each from a member jurisdiction, and I serve as an appointee of Virginia Beach. The seven elected members receive a salary for serving on their respective city council/board of supervisors, but receive no additional compensatin for serving on the SPSA board. I receive no compensation of any kind from VB or from SPSA. As to my level of expertise, I offer no comment except to say that effective January 1, only non elected business people like me will be appointed by the Governor as subsequent directors from a list of three that meet that description from each of the eight member jurisdictions. You can draw your own conclusion.
SPSA
Mr. Barrett if you really tried to help you would have fought to get more money for Construction and Demolition but instead you fill up SPSA's landfill with cheap 30.00 per ton Construction and Demolition waste.
The landfill is filling fast and do you really think you will get in excess of 205 million if you sell the RDF and then do you really think the beach is going to get a better deal from one of the chosen vendors?
Hey I know Virginia Beach how about you condem that hole next to Mount Trashmore II and use that for your municipal landfill shhhhhhhhhh
We do have a choice
And Mike as and appointed Board member you also are paid and have an expence account, but most importantly do not have the experties needed to make this a successful operation.
Thanks
I appreciate the advice JJR but I am not an employee of SPSA. I was appointed by the City of Virginia Beach to serve on the board of Directors and I believe it is my obligation to interact with the citizens of the Beach and other members to provide correction and clarification of published information. As you may become aware, much of what is posted herein is simply wrong or self serving, and while I don't expect everyone to believe my perspective, at least I have done my best to provide accurate information so citizens can make up their minds about policy issues. We have invested millions of dollars to create a waste management system that the best companies in the nation want to purchase. That in itself ought to be an indicator that SPSA does many things right for a fair price. As I have said before, the system works fine; it is the method of cost allocation that is broken.
Here is an idea!
Why doesn't everybody start recycling more of their items? If everybody starts to recycle more of their items then that means less weight going into the trucks and less money the cities are charged. And instead of throwing away things you no longer need, try donating them to thrift stores and charities. One mans trash is another mans treasure.
We have a choice
Anyone really interested in what is and has happened about the battle not to get the word out about selling SPSA and what all the options are go to SELLSPSANOW.com and read it for yourself. When you hide thing from the public you do it for a reason, from all the other things I see going on around here personal greed seems to be the one motivating factor.
SPSA workers
Mike seems like you spend a lot of time blogging on VA Pilot’s website when it might help SPSA more if you were actually working. If this is how SPSA employees spend their day "working" then it is no wonder they are as bad off as they are. You leave a time stamp on VA Pilot on each of your blogs you might just want to get to work and stop waiting SPSA's money.
We have a choice
And that is why we don't recycle all we can or why SPSA closed the mulching site rather than moving it back to where it was to begin with. And why did they decide to move it to withing 100 yards of the new condo's to begin with? There were I believe selling the best muclh and letting citizens take mulch for free. Now they just collect yard waste and throw it into the landfill. I have a lot of faith in the people of SPSA and their Board of Directors having NO KNOWLEDGE in waste management doing anything but prolonging this problem.
Just a thought...
Back in the mid 80's the city of Ithaca NY realized that their landfill was quickly running out of space and was facing the high costs of opening a new landfill. To minimize the trash filling up the landfill and delay the opening of a new landfill, the government instituted mandatory recycling and required a $1.00 trash tag for each bag or can of garbage. While the trash tags were a fiasco, the concept of mandatory recycling was a success. For some reason our former mayor stopped the transition to full size recycling cans in Chesapeake.
It is ridiculous that as a citizen of Chesapeake, I have to pay more for trash collection than a neighboring city. This is simply wrong. However, maybe by instituting mandatory recycling complemented by the more convenient full size cans, the city will save money by sending less trash into the landfill. At $170 a ton, those big blue cans just became more cost effective, let alone environmentally responsible.
Thanks for the Advice
Well, thanks again aalto for distinguishing yourself as one of the most uninformed to comment on this matter. Fact is, if a few mad citizens hopped up on anger based on a headline that is designed to do just that are asked to make policy in regard to multi million dollar assets that taxpayers have paid for, the result is of course predestined. They will make a bad decision that will cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The SPSA board, from decades ago until recently, made some decisions that saved their city/county money but which set the stage for the high fees some pay today. That was a choice they made, yet the member cities/counties benefitted then from the lower municipal tip fee, yet now they are being required to pay for their mistake. Some have "manned up to it", others sued to get out of their obligations. Either way, I am committed to a work out that protects the value of the assets paid for by our citizens and ratepayers whether you approve of that or not.
We have a choice
Bring your questions and here what ReEngery has to offer. Why hasn't our city allowed us to have a public hearing on this subject? What else are they hiding about SPSA? Keep in mind 2010 is and election year and they are all up for election this time. I would say this isn't a good time not to be taking good care of the citizens of this city.
There is another Choice
Remember six of the eight counties served by SPSA are interested in ReEnergy Holdings proposal to buy out SPSA which includes cutting our old tipping fees in half, doing a $40 Million upgrade on the Portsmouth power plant just to name a few. Come hear Larry Richardson tonight at 7p.m. Workforce Development Ctr., 201 E. Little Creek Rd.
Question.
What would happen if many of us decided we do not want garbage pick up and hauled it to the dump ourselves?
I am contemplating it now.
Amusing
And once again the unelected SPSA member from VB tries to shift the blame away from an inept board by spinning the facts in many usless and irrelevant directions. Much like the same practice that had this board lying to the state and covering up expenses and truth from the public.
Fact is this attempt at justifying another failed regional government agency has again proven just how big a failure SPSA, HRT, HRPDC, and the MPO are to the citizens of Tidewater. Facts are facts. We have the highest fee in the nation. Spin away!
Just another benefit from Private/Public partnership
I'm tired of hearing that my local/state/federal tax dollars are going to some overpaid executive's salary and annual bonus just so they can cut jobs to "save" money and increase corporate profits. What was wrong with paying a City worker to collect/dump the trash? What was wrong with a City municipal dump? At least then we could say we were paying a WORKING man for doing SOMETHING!
Now
is the time to sell SPSA and get government out of running a business they obviously know nothing about. These governments can't figure out their own budgets, and the board of directors at SPSA should all be held responsible for the criminal fraud they keep perpetuating on the citizens of South Hampton Roads.
Que the SPSA defenders.
If they spent half as much time over seeing the SPSA operation and improving the efficencies of the operation as they do defending and making excuses for it as well as critizing those that report about it perhaps we would not be in this mess today.
SPSA should be privatized and allowed to run under competent private leadership. It will be turned around within a year. Government is just inherently incapable of operating this business and yes it is a business.
don't blame barret and his gang, blame our
good old incompetent lazaie faire city council representatives that attend, or are suppose to attend the monthly meetings to negotiate the fees and services, Norfolk reps are notorious for failing to show up and participate. yep good old norfolk government representaives. Oh, they are also raising our water fees july 1st 2009. yippee - we are so NOT proud of these elected people. time for change May 2010!
Oh, that's who said it.
Finally we all find out that it must've been SPSA that originated the phrase: "One man's trash, is another man's treasure" .
Refreshing
Well yes, once again, Scott Harper has raised the boood pressure of his readers, claiming we have the highest tip fee in the nation, again ignoring that we also have the lowest (Suffolk is free), a very low fee (the Navy enjoys a contract near $25/ton), a moderate fee (commercial is $35/ton), an average fee (the Beach is capped at $53/ton), and regretfully, members representing less than 20% of the waste stream will pay $170/ton. Fact is, the average tip fee is nowhere near the highest in the nation, and in fact, is among the lowest of those systems that have a waste to energy component. The problem is the method of cost allocation, and since one City which sued to get our of its obligation and to transfer that obligation to every other member, has come close to accomplishing its objective by other means. It took the Governor to remind them that they signed an agreement, and no matter how onerous they considered that to be 25 years later, it was a binding legal agreement. How refreshing. Now is the time to sit down and renegotiate the agreements based on a fair assessment of where everyone stands today.