CHESAPEAKE Not everyone is suffering from the financial meltdown at SPSA, the troubled garbage authority serving much of South Hampton Roads.

SUFFOLK Residents looking to dump brush piles and other large items at the regional landfill will find the weekend hours there drastically reduced beginning Saturday. The landfill will no longer be open Sundays and will close at noon Saturdays. The cost-saving move by the Southeastern Public Service Authority has the city searching for an alternative for residents.

PORTSMOUTH The Southeastern Public Service Authority has asked a judge to help it resolve a dispute with the city over about $1.5 million in service fees Portsmouth wants to collect from the regional waste authority.

NORFOLK Like many of the region's trash customers, the city's housing authority has seen huge increases in its garbage pickup costs in recent years. But unlike most private residents, the agency can do something about it.

CHESAPEAKE
SPSA agreed Thursday to sell its trash-burning power plant and sorting center in Portsmouth to Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. for $150 million and other incentives.
By a unanimous vote, the board of the Southeastern Public Service Authority ended months of bidding and negotiations to privatize a major asset for disposing of garbage in South Hampton Roads.

CHESAPEAKE SPSA, the regional trash agency, has decided to end all of its recycling programs after 21 years of service, citing a desire to cut costs, save money and reform itself into a leaner organization.

CHESAPEAKE Frustrations over paying some of the highest trash-disposal rates in the nation boiled over Wednesday as the debate nears a tipping point on the future of SPSA, the region's financially troubled waste agency.

A New York company has submitted a bid worth $338 million to purchase SPSA and privatize all trash and recycling services in South Hampton Roads as early as April. The offer is the third in the past year from ReEnergy Holdings LLC, and is the most detailed and generous yet.

In 2007, SPSA promised to build two garbage-transfer stations in Suffolk, costing about $20 million. In exchange, Suffolk approved a key landfill expansion for SPSA near the Great Dismal Swamp. On Thursday, leaders of the financially troubled trash agency told Suffolk that it no longer can afford the two stations.

CHESAPEAKE SPSA, the troubled regional waste authority, has hired a new chief financial officer. Liesl DeVary, who for the past four years had been director of budget and finance for Isle of Wight County, started her new job for the Southeastern Public Service Authority on Tuesday.