Use Time to Cut Clean Deal on Trash Plant : Supervisors should review all aspects of contract

The 8-year-old proposal for a North County trash-to-energy plant, where some waste would be recycled, some burned and the rest buried, once again comes before the San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

Have the twists and turns and revisions over eight years turned this deal into an expensive, two-headed white elephant? Or is the lengthy delay simply a reflection of how difficult it is to find an acceptable way to dispose of trash?

The several North County cities opposing the project argue the former. But, given the difficulties of siting landfills, the latter is more probable.

The delays have escalated costs for the county and the private company that would build the plant and, eventually, will mean higher garbage bills for residents.

But, if the plant is ever built, it should be environmentally safer than it would have been, thanks to tougher air pollution laws enacted in the interim.

Environmentally, the legal and contractual safeguards should make the trash-to-energy plant a viable part of an overall waste management solution. Properly monitored incineration has a place alongside recycling, landfills and strategies to reduce the amount of waste generated.

A 300-foot incinerator stack might not be the most desirable neighbor but neither are buried landfills, or the “Mt. Trashmore” vertical dump that San Marcos plans as a stopgap.

North County is running out of time. The San Marcos landfill is expected to be full by the end of the year. Expansions might buy a little more time, but an approved site for a new landfill is still a long way off. The problem affects the rest of the county as well. Without more landfill space and the incinerator, the other landfills will fill up quicker.

Can the county still negotiate a good contract with these constraints?

The revised agreement that the supervisors will be considering Tuesday puts greater risk on the county’s part of the partnership and less on the private shoulders of Thermo Electron. But an outside consultant says the deal is pretty standard for such arrangements.

There are two things that the county needs to be cautious about before it approves the agreement.

First is the status of the contract with San Diego Gas & Electric to buy the plant’s power at a higher-than-normal rate. If the courts void this contract, the price of processing trash at the plant would jump $20 a ton.

The contract calls for this to be settled before the incinerator is built in Phase 2 of the project. But legitimate questions have been raised about whether a recycling plant alone--Phase 1--makes sound financial sense. The issue should be resolved before the agreement is signed, or the county should seek additional concessions.

The concern is whether this question can be resolved in time to meet the state’s end-of-the-year deadline for $185 million in tax-exempt bonds. But this deadline may give the county leverage, because it will be more difficult for Thermo Electron to recoup its upfront costs without these bonds.

The other serious question facing the supervisors is the control of the waste stream. The cities opposing the plant threaten to take their trash elsewhere if the plant goes ahead. With so few waste treatment options available, this seems highly unlikely. But the cities felt strongly enough to spend $80,000 for a study of alternatives, which should be complete in September.

The study might answer some of the questions about the worth of the recycling part of the plant, and the extra time might be sufficient for a court ruling or a settlement in the SDG&E; suit.

After eight years of negotiations, mostly in Thermo Electron’s favor, waiting a few more weeks, even with the bond deadline looming, seems warranted.