Citizens Lead the Financial Analysis of Burning Garbage in Frederick County, MD

Date: 12 Aug 2012 | posted in: waste - anti-incineration, Waste to Wealth | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

The most reliable, perhaps only reliable, source of financial information concerning the proposed garbage incinerator in Frederick County, MD, has not been the Authority or the County Commissioners. Rather it has been the citizens and small business owners in the county. Here is another contribution to the public.


 

Reposted from Frederick News Post – http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/opinion/display_lte.htm?storyid=139314#.UCv-EVZlTWp

House of cards

That is exactly what the financials surrounding the trash/tire incinerator planned for Buckeystown are. We’ve been told by this and the prior Board of County Commissioners, their assistant and the waste authority (and it is the basis for the rosy projections from them) that they will sell wholesale the electricity generated by this incinerator for 8.7 cents a kilowatt-hour.

Take a look at your last electric bill and see what you are paying per kilowatt-hour: yes, it’s 6.3 cents, dropping to 5.9 cents Oct. 1. Now does anyone believe the power company will pay 47 percent more than it is selling it to you for? I didn’t think so. Yet that is the house of cards this whole scheme to spend $2 billion of our tax dollars is built on. This little slip of the pencil is an error of approximately $600 million, and it’s not in the taxpayers’ favor.

The other absurd piece of this puzzle is that when Carroll County pulls out, Frederick is left with finding a home for 151,000 tons of ash (which is left over after burning) every year, and the total trash Frederick long-hauled last year was 157,000 tons. So, the net reduction of tonnage to move as ash versus the total trash that Frederick County generates annually is 6,000 tons.

We are told this ash is to be taken to the overcrowded, almost-all-filled up, so-we-were-told-back-when-this-deal-was-cooked-up landfill at Reichs Ford Road at a cost of less than $14 a ton. The question here is, if the landfill is able to accept 151,000 tons of ash a year, why are we planning to spend $2 billion to build what is acknowledged (except by Gov. Martin O’Malley) as the dirtiest and most expensive form of electricity generation? And why are we long-hauling now at $50 a ton when we could be doing what the “leadership” plans to do with the ash when the incinerator goes live?

We are being had, people, and the time to speak is now. Ask the BoCC to rebut this letter’s contents, ask Commissioners President Blaine Young why he stated on his radio show that the taxpayers are not responsible to pay back the debt and operating expenses. Either he didn’t read the contract or he is not telling the truth. The prior BoCC did this deal and committed our homes to this massive debt without our permission, and they did it through the waste authority so we could not demand a referendum. When your system benefit charge on your annual tax bill begins to skyrocket, you will know you’ve been had, but it will be too late.

Come to the meeting at the downtown library on Aug. 22 at 6 p.m. and tell these folks and the Maryland Department of the Environment what you think of this scheme, and while you’re at it, ask your friends in Montgomery County what they think of the $40 million they are paying annually for the revenue shortfalls at their incinerator in Dickerson. Look for all the truth at

That is exactly what the financials surrounding the trash/tire incinerator planned for Buckeystown are. We’ve been told by this and the prior Board of County Commissioners, their assistant and the waste authority (and it is the basis for the rosy projections from them) that they will sell wholesale the electricity generated by this incinerator for 8.7 cents a kilowatt-hour.

Take a look at your last electric bill and see what you are paying per kilowatt-hour: yes, it’s 6.3 cents, dropping to 5.9 cents Oct. 1. Now does anyone believe the power company will pay 47 percent more than it is selling it to you for? I didn’t think so. Yet that is the house of cards this whole scheme to spend $2 billion of our tax dollars is built on. This little slip of the pencil is an error of approximately $600 million, and it’s not in the taxpayers’ favor.

The other absurd piece of this puzzle is that when Carroll County pulls out, Frederick is left with finding a home for 151,000 tons of ash (which is left over after burning) every year, and the total trash Frederick long-hauled last year was 157,000 tons. So, the net reduction of tonnage to move as ash versus the total trash that Frederick County generates annually is 6,000 tons.

We are told this ash is to be taken to the overcrowded, almost-all-filled up, so-we-were-told-back-when-this-deal-was-cooked-up landfill at Reichs Ford Road at a cost of less than $14 a ton. The question here is, if the landfill is able to accept 151,000 tons of ash a year, why are we planning to spend $2 billion to build what is acknowledged (except by Gov. Martin O’Malley) as the dirtiest and most expensive form of electricity generation? And why are we long-hauling now at $50 a ton when we could be doing what the “leadership” plans to do with the ash when the incinerator goes live?

We are being had, people, and the time to speak is now. Ask the BoCC to rebut this letter’s contents, ask Commissioners President Blaine Young why he stated on his radio show that the taxpayers are not responsible to pay back the debt and operating expenses. Either he didn’t read the contract or he is not telling the truth. The prior BoCC did this deal and committed our homes to this massive debt without our permission, and they did it through the waste authority so we could not demand a referendum. When your system benefit charge on your annual tax bill begins to skyrocket, you will know you’ve been had, but it will be too late.

Come to the meeting at the downtown library on Aug. 22 at 6 p.m. and tell these folks and the Maryland Department of the Environment what you think of this scheme, and while you’re at it, ask your friends in Montgomery County what they think of the $40 million they are paying annually for the revenue shortfalls at their incinerator in Dickerson. Look for all the truth at www.no-incinerator.org.

Gary J. Thuro

Frederick

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