Waste Not! Carroll

Posted: Sunday, July 18, 2010

By Carrie Ann Knauer, Times Staff Writer | 0 comments

While public discussions by elected officials about the incinerator have been less frequent since both Carroll and Frederick voted to go forward with a shared incinerator, a debate among residents in both counties has continued to boil in e-mails.

The e-mail chain, which is sent to more than 70 e-mail addresses, had become a forum for residents of both Frederick and Carroll counties to question the assumptions on which the incinerator proposal is based, to ask elected officials for explanations of details within the incinerator contract, and to suggest alternative methods of waste disposal that residents feel should have been investigated.

One of the most vocal residents on the chain is Caroline Eader, a Frederick County resident who has followed the incinerator decision-making process since spring of 2008. Eader said she has read the contract and found points contradictory to what Frederick's Board of County Commissioners seem to believe.

For example, Frederick officials have said that if the counties decide not to go forward with the project, the counties will owe the selected contractor Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. for the expenses the company has incurred thus far, with a cap of $3 million. However, Eader said that the contract actually says the company can ask for up to $3.4 million in compensation, to cover third-party expenses Wheelabrator may have spent in order to seek government approval for the project.

"What else in there can they change or adapt?" she said.

Eader said it feels like the officials who have voted for the incinerator have been rubber stamping the documents, rather than carefully reading them to understand the intricate details of the contract and their future obligations.Westminster Councilman Robert Wack said he has followed the incinerator e-mail dialogue because he is personally interested as well as concerned for potential impact on the city of Westminster. The county may choose to make a rule that all trash produced in the county must come to the county landfill, he said, which could mean the hauler the city contracts with would have to pay a higher tipping fee, and pass that cost increase onto the city.

"We want to be able to negotiate the best deal that we can get for our [residents], and that means that we need to have haulers that can take the trash wherever they can get the best price, and that's not necessarily going to be the incinerator," Wack said.

Wack said he is impressed with the way residents on the e-mail chain have held officials' feet to the fire, asking questions about the assumptions used in the incinerator cost models, which he believes are based on unrealistically high goals.

"There are so many different moving pieces to this, and my impression from having a ringside seat to all this is that they're sort of plowing ahead without looking at some of the stuff," Wack said of the county governments.

"Maybe they have other information they're just not doing a good job of sharing, or another analysis that they're not sharing," Wack said. "But if they do, they're really screwing up, because the stuff I've seen just makes me scratch my head."

The continuous questioning from residents may have had an impact on Frederick's Board of County Commissioners, which voted earlier this month to spend up to $50,000 to hire an independent consultant to review the costs associated with the incinerator. Municipal and Financial Services Group of Annapolis will evaluate the assumptions and cost estimates associated with the incinerator and report back to the board.

Eader said she that while she agrees with the spirit of the independent review, she believes the board is doing it to placate dissenters, rather than out of a true interest in the legitimacy of the assumptions used in the proposal.

"It's not the point that we need to feel better," Eader said of the dissenting residents. "The commissioners should stop and question these numbers themselves."

Dan Andrews, a leader of Waste Not! Carroll, which has been working for several months to raise awareness on the incinerator issue in Carroll, said it's been exciting to see interest in the incinerator debate grow and to see a few key participants delve fully into the service contract and financial documents.

"It's a tremendous effort for people to donate this much time and effort, but they do, and I think they've done a really good job," Andrews said. "They're not a bunch of crackpots making incorrect determinations."

Andrews said the elected officials seem to have become less and less interested in the debate. He compared it to a battle of wills at this point, and said it will be important to see who wins the county commissioner race in both counties, since the next decision to go forward will be made by the future board.

"It's a legacy project ... that once we embark on this journey, you are not going to stop this thing," Andrews said. "Once those bonds hit, and those millions and millions of dollars start flowing, we're done."

Reach staff writer Carrie Ann Knauer at 410-857-7874 or carrie.knauer@carrollcountytimes.com.