By Nancy Peckenham
The city of Newburgh is moving ahead with a contract to haul its solid waste to Taylor Biomass Energy, an innovative trash-to-energy facility under construction in Montgomery. The three-to-one vote in favor of the agreement came at a special meeting on Tuesday evening of the Newburgh City Council. Councilwoman Christine Bello was the only person to vote ‘no.’ Councilwoman Marge Bell was absent.
Last Thursday, several council members said they had a lot of unanswered questions about the 20-year agreement and would like to meet with Taylor officials to discuss their concerns. On Friday, two council members, Regina Angelo and Curlie Dillard, toured the facility and met with company officials, who, according to Dillard, answered his questions. He added that after speaking with uptown city constituents he decided to vote in favor of the resolution calling on the acting city manager to negotiate the details of the contract with Taylor.
Residents Question the Urgency of Making a Deal with Taylor
Several residents spoke at the beginning of the meeting to re-iterate their concerns about rushing into the agreement. Taylor Biomass had imposed a July 22 deadline for accepting its offer. “It hasn’t been communicated why this deadline is here,” Michael Gabor told the city council members. “Your job is to represent the city, not a business,” added Gabor, who is running for a council seat this year.
Mayor Valentine argued that the agreement to process the city’s solid waste would be a financial benefit because otherwise the city would have to pay significantly higher fees to the county to haul waste to the same Taylor Biomass facility.
City Projects More Than $900,000 Savings
The proposal currently offered to the city would charge $65 per ton of solid waste, with annual increases of 2.25 percent.. County officials are working on an agreement with Taylor that could end up with a fee of $80-a-ton charged back to municipalities. The city comptroller calculated that the city could save more than $900,000 over six years under the terms of the Taylor contract.
Thirteen municipalities that haul their own trash have been asked to sign a contract with Taylor. Jim Rollins, a vice president at Taylor, would not say how many had already signed on. In neighboring Cornwall, officials agreed to send a letter of intent to Taylor, but failed to take further action after the town council discussed several concerns about the contract. In the village of Cornwall-on-Hudson, Mayor Brendan Coyne said last week that he didn’t send a letter of intent approved earlier by the village board because of reservations about the contract.
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