Talking trash: Waste management negotiations break down

Two Newfoundlandwaste management authoritieshave discovered working out a deal to dispose of garbage can get quite messy.

Western Regional Waste Management and Central Newfoundland Regional Waste Management are butting heads over a deal that would see garbage trucked from the west coast to a waste facility in Norris Arm, some 40 kmeast of Grand Falls-Windsor.

"The figure that we gave the west coast was a number that we had three different people involved in trying to crunch the numbers, to see if it was a good number," said Robert Elliott, chairman of the board for Central Newfoundland Regional Waste Management.

"We had a senior government employee do the calculation, we had our engineering firm do the calculation and we did it ourselves. The number we came up with we think is a good number."

The proposed deal? $80.58 a tonne.

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Josh Carey ofWestern Regional Waste Managementsaid that's too rich.

"We believe that amount of money would put us in a financially unstable position, and that it would create instability in our organizationfinancially," he said.

"We made a commitmentto the public that we would be financially responsible and fiscally prudent, and we intend on doing just that."

Elliott says the central groupeven offered a trial period deal for the west coast group.

"If that number is a bit rich, we guaranteed the west coast, 'Let us go with this number for a year and then we would look at the books.' And if they feel that we overcharged them, then we would either reimburse or we would make some adjustments in the numbers."

Garbage by the numbers

Further complicating the talks is the composting and waste management projects underway on the west coast.

Those efforts has the central camp wondering about money lost due to waste reduction. Elliot says they expect 32,500 tonnesfrom the west coast, anything less would come at a loss for them.

"If get 20,000 tonnes, we will lose a million dollars [a year]," he said.

Both sides metto go over the numbers, but the talks went nowhere and the plug was pulled on the meeting.

"We called it off, and we haven't sat down since then," Elliot said.

"We agreed to disagree and we shook hands and the west coast left the room. There was nobody upset or mad or anything. There was no shouting butwe had to call it off because we didn't like the way things were going."

At this point west coast garbage will stay on the west coast until a deal is reached. Carey says nothing changes and the two-stream plan to reduce waste is still a go.

"What our board has decided to do is that we will continue with our program," he said."The residents in western Newfoundland, the 35,000 households, will notice nothing different."

As for Elliot, he said he wanted to be clear thatcovering the cost of the service is the goal for the central authority, not making a profit.

"We're not in it to try and make money off of the backs of the people on the west coast, but we certainly got to make sure that we can pay the operating cost."

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