Incinerator self-destructing?

Mercer Business, Apr 01, 1996 by Fischer, Dorothy

Tenth birthday greetings will soon be in order. But don't bother crooning the traditional tune because no one is really happy about this particular milestone.

Still, it' s worth remembering that it was in June 1986 that a site on Hamilton's portion of Duck Island was chosen for a proposed incinerator, a construction project destined to solve what the press had long been calling "Mercer County's garbage disposal crisis."

After a decade, the crisis is still with us although the incinerator is not, a victim of various delays and some negative judicial and congressional responses.

With millions already invested in the project, Mercer County Executive Bob Prunetti is holding talks with officials of all 13 municipalities in an effort to salvage it.

"He's offering basically two plans," says Sharon Lauchaire, county spokesperson. "One is to abandon the entire project and the other is to proceed through voluntary participation of the towns, who would be asked to sign long term contracts, probably for 20 years, with the county through MCIA to dispose of their trash."

Because there is no national flow control legislation, the state lacks power to mandate where municipalities junk their junk so participants would have to voluntarily opt for participation in the incinerator program, also known by its pseudonym of resource recovery.

While the freeholders have to approve this plan and have hired consultants to study same, Prunetti has taken the show on the road to address the concerns of representatives of each community. Later this spring, they will be asked to sign on, and the number of favorable responses will indicate if there's sufficient trash flow to make the project successful. (The sale of energy generated by the plan is also anticipated, although no agreements have yet been finalized.)

There are no predictions on the outcome. Opposition over the years has focused on environmental concerns, increased traffic in certain areas, and costs. The latter may be a factor in dissuading certain municipalities from leaping aboard, since it's possible that short term savings via the private hauler route may be more economical, initially, than the long-term commitment that the incinerator demands.

But, insists Lauchaire, this long-term contract should be viewed as an advantage. "Now you can't get a long-term contract with a private hauler, and landfill costs over the last decade have been very volatile. There's not much stability to them and there's no reason to think that there will be in the near future. But if they sign this contract, they'll be in at a fixed rate and will have stability. They'll know what they're paying for the next 20 years whereas, entering a contract with a private hauler for two years, they'll then have to renegotiate. They won't know what they'll be paying."

She adds that if landfill rates go up, as many estimate that they will, these municipalities will be facing much higher rates. "So the long-term contract is probably the biggest benefit of the program for them."

Lauchaire doesn't believe that Mercer's "trash disposal crisis" is hurting the county in the area of economic development since, she notes, every municipality across the state also has to deal with this problem, as well as municipalities all along the east coast. She points out that distant states have indicated that New Jersey's refuse is no longer welcome, and that even where a red carpet is rolled out, transportation costs may yank that rug right out from under that route.

The average county resident probably has little knowledge or even concern over where the trash goes once it leaves the premises, just as long as it goes somewhere. "Those who put their garbage on the curb see no pending crisis. People are not getting sick or dropping dead from it. I don't think people have sufficiently confronted the problem,' said former county executive Bill Mathesius -- 10 years ago.

One person who can tell them exactly where it goes is Jim Lambert, acting executive director of the MCIA, the lead agency designated by the county for solid waste management planning.

Currently, he says, the collected trash is first hauled to the transfer station in Ewing where it is compacted and placed in large vehicles for its final journey to a Bucks County landfill, a site that is expected to reach capacity in about six years. This scenario would be radically altered with the incinerator, he points out.

"With resource recovery, the waste would proceed directly to the resource recovery facility to be processed and burned. The only thing then going on to the landfill would be ashes."

Lambert adds that the amount of trash needing ultimate disposal has been greatly reduced through the success of Mercer's recycling program, which he terms, "One of the most aggressive in the country," with its reincarnations of all sorts of papers, grass clippings, and batteries as well as its co-mingle mix. "We recycle items that most counties don't," he points out.

Recalling that a 1994 Supreme Court decision struck down local flow control legislation, saying it was a restriction on interstate commerce, Lambert says, "Without legal flow control, instead of having a totally integrated solid waste system, you'll have waste haulers with the ability to bypass our system, not pay our rates and dispose of waste wherever they would like."