Northampton runs its regional landfill as a business—and that business is showing signs of trouble, trouble that may have implications for dozens of communities and businesses in the Valley. Since April 6, the landfill has eliminated its Saturday hours and cut back its weekday operations. The residential transfer station on Elm Street will retain its current schedule. The tipping fee has been raised by $2.50 a ton in a bid to make up for declining revenues.
City Engineer James Laurila, in a February address to a joint committee of the Board of Public Works (BPW) and the City Council, noted that the solid waste enterprise fund—the landfill's accounting mechanism—has been hit hard this year. He estimated that closing the landfill on Saturdays, and shutting the gate at 3 p.m. instead of 4 p.m. on weekdays, would save the city $40,000 annually. Laurila also recommend taking a new look at the pay-as-you-throw program in a bid to save on the cost of staffing gatekeepers.
DPW chief Ned Huntley, in a telephone interview with the Advocate, said the landfill enterprise was adversely affected by several factors in 2008. "All of the risk assessment was costly, including epidemiology studies, and air and water risk assessment studies," Huntley said. "The odor sniffing contract—that's about a quarter of a million so far. The unanticipated legal fees—the zoning complaint and the nuisance complaint (filed by landfill neighbors) have cost us well over six figures."
The city is under a consent order from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to control odors emanating from the site. Florence resident Bob Aronson argued that environmental compliance costs should come as no surprise to the DPW. "These are costs associated with noncompliance on the part of the city," Aronson said. "The DEP consent order of April 9, 2008 acknowledges that complaints from residents near the regional landfill are legitimate, and that those complaints are the result of ongoing deficiencies and defects in the operation and design of the facility."
Huntley, when asked by the Advocate whether declines in recycling revenue have been a factor in the landfill's economic woes, confirmed that the city only cleared $30,000 or $40,000 in recycling revenue in 2008, down from historic highs of $70,000 to $90,000. "The bottom has fallen out of the recycling market," he said. "We're only getting our base payment of $15 a ton at the Springfield MRF (Materials Recycling Facility)."
The agreement to curtail landfill hours was codified in an "amendment and extension" to the landfill operation contract held by Solid Waste Solutions, LLC. Solid Waste Solutions (SWS), a partnership between Northampton's Alternative Recycling Systems, owned by T. Patrick Kennedy, and Northfield's Whitney Trucking, represented by Dan Whitney, has held the contract to operate the Northampton landfill since 2001. SWS has since negotiated, with the BPW, the right to retain this contract, without yearly approval from the mayor, the city auditor or the city solicitor, until the current landfill cell, known as Phase IV, closes.
"Only amendments to the contract need mayoral, solicitor and auditor signatures," said Huntley. "Not extensions." (The contract amendment to curtail landfill hours had not, at press time, been signed by Mayor Clare Higgins, City Solicitor Janet Sheppard, or City Auditor Joyce Karpinski.)
SWS, as a part of its half-million-dollar yearly contract to operate the landfill, retains the exclusive right to manage the cover materials supplied to the site. In 2008, SWS trucked more than 50,000 tons of "daily and intermediate cover" to the landfill—cover used for shaping, grading, and covering the active face on an ongoing basis. The city was reimbursed in 2008, in a "revenue-sharing" arrangement, $4 per ton for the receipt of cover material, which includes auto shredder residue, catch basin cleanings, sludge ash and other contaminated soils sourced from the Northeast region that have been approved by the state DEP for use in lined landfills.
The Board of Public Works, according to Huntley and Laurila, is still waiting for the return of a study, prepared by Stantec Engineering, which examines alternatives to the proposed expansion of the Northampton landfill.
