Flow control legislation ripe for reconsideration

It may sound  strange to consider solid waste management among  the county’s 2010 New Year’s resolutions, but the unpaid pricetag on garbage disposal that didn’t make it into the 2010 county budget ($6.3 million) means the issue will take center-stage when the new Legislature is seated in January. Coincidentally, 2010 is also the pre-ordained year for the county to revisit its Solid Waste Plan.

Today, the county relies on a public authority, the Resource Recovery Agency (RRA), to dispose of much of its trash. Issues involving the RRA are complicated and multi-faceted and much could be said about them.

Since my election in November, I have been researching RRA’s history, meeting with its management and directors, and visiting the plant so as best to contribute to the coming conversation on solid waste. A little history will help.

Fifteen landfills — including a county landfill adjacent to the airport — once handled the county’s solid waste until the 1980s when the decision was made to replace them with a waste-to-energy facility. This facility was constructed in Poughkeepsie and currently burns waste, outputting ash used in building supplies and creating steam that is then sold to Central Hudson as electricity.

To prevent the county from falling into long-term debt the county asked the state Legislature to create the RRA in the mid-1980s as a public benefit corporation with the power to issue bonds solely by revenue from the project.

Whereas RRA self-sufficiency was the goal, events happened differently. The RRA bond underwriters insisted that the county back-up RRA contracts to guarantee any shortfalls in revenues. This resulted in a net service fee agreement. The county agreed to subsidize shortfalls, but to protect the taxpayer the Legislature instituted flow control legislation.

This required all haulers to bring county-generated waste to the RRA plant, and initially it kept county taxes out of the waste industry by keeping the RRA plant solvent.

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In 1994, however, the United States Supreme Court invalidated flow control practices, only to later reverse itself in 2007. As a result of the 1994 court decision Dutchess County went from paying $0 in 1994 to $3,329,527 in 1995, as the RRA was forced to reduce its tipping fees (what it charges haulers) to compete in an open market to persuade haulers to bring their trash to the RRA.

With the loss of flow control legislation the county began paying the RRA’s expenses and making up for lost revenue. In 2010 the county is anticipated to pay the RRA $6.3 million.

More can and will be said in the weeks ahead about the county’s solid waste management practices, the RRA, its cost basis, as well as the philosophical positions for or against flow control.

Merely from historic analysis Dutchess County’s reinstitution of a flow control policy argues strongly for greater self-sufficiency for the RRA while simultaneously driving down the annual county subsidy. As the new Legislature prepares to consider how it will pay the 2010 subsidy of $6.3 million, careful consideration should be given to the merits of re-enacting flow control legislation.

Michael Kelsey is the newly elected County-Legislator for the towns of Amenia, Washington, Stanford, Pleasant Valley and the Village of Millbrook. Write him at KelseyESQ@yahoo.com.