by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
“I wish we were here today to talk about something transformational,” commented Mayor John Peyton as he addressed Monday’s meeting of the Rotary Club of Jacksonville.
“This isn’t that,” he added. “This is something we have to do. I’m talking about garbage.”
The proposal to extend the City’s contract with Waste Management, Inc. to operate the Trail Ridge Landfill without going through a competitive bid process, Peyton said, “has become a hot topic. It’s much bigger than I anticipated.”
He began his presentation by recounting Jacksonville’s “history with garbage” and said it hasn’t been good.
“In the ‘60s we burned our garbage and distributed the ash into the community, primarily in the urban core,” said Peyton. “In the ‘80s we had a full-blown garbage crisis with nowhere to put it and garbage barges going up and down the East Coast.
“In 1991 the City took action to manage its garbage and that has led us to where were are today, winding down the contract we signed (with Waste Management) in ‘91.”
He explained that the agreement in question was made during former Mayor Tommy Hazouri’s administration when 900 acres on the Westside 200 feet from the Baker County line was designated as the repository for Jacksonville’s garbage.
The most contentious point, said Peyton, is some of the language in the contract that he said is open to interpretation.
“It’s a 24-page agreement that includes the term ‘life of the facility.’ The definition of that term depends on who you ask and it’s not clear in the contract. Waste Management says that means the entire 900 acres.”
But, he admitted, another interpretation is that the language refers to the 144 acres of the site underneath the current trash mound. That interpretation was supported recently by General Counsel Rick Mullaney in a document Mullaney distributed to City Council. Mullaney, however, would not say if his interpretation should be the basis of a Council member’s vote.
“The (former mayor John) Delaney administration tried to negotiate a remedy, but was unsuccessful,” continued Peyton.
He said the current settlement proposal was reached after three years of negotiations and he believes it’s in the best interest of the taxpayers to allow Waste Management to continue to operate the landfill exclusively for several reasons, all based on the bottom line.
Waste Management has offered a $2 per ton reduction in the charge to the City and also has agreed to build a second mound, which would allow the company — years from now — to fill in the space between the two mounds, thus saving the City even more money.
Peyton said the proposed agreement also would make Waste Management liable for the cost to close the landfill when it can no longer hold any more refuse, a cost Peyton said could ultimately total $198 million.
He also made the point that at $10.31 per ton (the fee including the discount in the extension proposal) Jacksonville would pay a low fee for disposal compared to other parts of Florida.
“Hillsborough County pays $13.91 per ton and Pinnellas County pays $13.67 per ton,” said Peyton. “Sarasota pays $10.45 per ton but that doesn’t include closure costs which add $4 per ton.”
Peyton said it’s “highly unlikely” that any company could bid lower than Waste Management has proposed and he offered data on landfill sites managed by Republic Services, the primary proponent of opening the process to competitive bids.
“They operate three landfills in the country on land owned by city governments, one in Arizona and two in Texas and all three are charged more than $20 per ton,” he said.
Peyton also expressed surprise over Republic’s aggressive opposition to the City extending its contract with Waste Management since Republic recently negotiated an extension on its own City contract to collect garbage.
“It just made sense (to extend Republic’s contract),” said Peyton. “They already have the trucks and they know the routes.”
Peyton also said he is “very proud of the people who negotiated this deal for Jacksonville” but also said he has no doubt it won’t be easy to extend the existing contract with Waste Management.
“It’s going to be a tough vote in the City Council,” he said. “The challenge is it takes 45 minutes to explain this deal. I’ll probably give this presentation 50 times.”
Managing garbage and trash is an integral part of Jacksonville’s future development.
“It’s the concept of concurrency,” said Peyton. “In order to grow we have to have a plan for issues like traffic and schools and water sources and air quality.”
Solid waste is also on the list, he added.
“If we do not have a plan to handle our garbage then we’re out of concurrency and that would shut down our growth,” he said. “Failure to do this right will impede our ability to make Jacksonville better.”
The Council will meet Thursday at 2 p.m. in the first of two meetings dedicated solely to the Trail Ridge Landfill.
Is it about acreage or is it about weight?
A lot can happen in a business relationship over the course of 18 years. There’s possibly no better example of that concept than the relationship between the City of Jacksonville and Waste Management, Inc. over what to do with Duval County’s garbage.
The original agreement was struck back when Jacksonville had toll booths and was completed under pressure from the State of Florida in the form of an emergency order to find a place for the trash before the existing landfill closed.
Waste Management had purchased the 977-acre site now known as the Trail Ridge Landfill and was in the process of securing permits to operate the site as a private landfill when the City called for bids to provide solid waste services.
Three firms responded to the request for proposals and Waste Management’s bid was 60 percent lower than either of the others. So began the story that leads to today.
Within a few years, renegotiating the complex contract has been tackled by every administration, said mayoral spokesperson Misty Skipper. The current negotiations, she said, have taken much the same imperative tone as the original agreement in view of the fact that the current “mound” of garbage will meet the capacity of the 144-acre site in about five years, which is also the minimum time required to secure permits and construct the infrastructure needed to start depositing trash in an additional site.
Skipper said in 2006 a concerted effort was begun by Mayor John Peyton to restructure the contract with Waste Management in time to come to agreement before the permit-process time line became critical again like it was years ago.
After lengthy negotiations, an agreement was reached for Waste Management to continue to provide solid waste disposal services and at the same time offer the City a lower fee per ton for that service.
“We wanted Waste Management to reduce the rate from the current $12 per ton to $10 per ton. They came back with a proposal of $20 (per ton) but we knew what we felt was the appropriate number,” said Skipper.
Another aspect of the amendment is how the length of the contract should be measured. The agreement supported by the City calls for that to be evaluated in terms of amount of garbage as opposed to a length of time.
The City wants to allow Waste Management to operate the landfill at Trail Ridge until the volume of waste reaches a total of 42 million tons. Skipper said the current mound is estimated at 14 million tons with a maximum capacity of 21 million tons.
Skipper said another factor is that a new agreement is a modification of the original agreement rather than a new contract. The City’s proposed contract also includes provisions for future negotiation under clearly-defined terms – in the event solid waste technology changes, for example.
“Waste Management has been operating that landfill for the past 17 years,” said Skipper. “The City’s position is we can’t get back to the situation we were in in 1991. We have to deal with the garbage and Trail Ridge is the only place we can do it.”
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