The Delaware County Solid Waste Authority began its efforts in 1988 with the passage of a ½ cent sales tax of Delaware County citizens, “to provide solid waste services for the people of Delaware County”.
Yes, you read it right; this public authority has for 25 years ignored the intent of the law, and has charged citizens of Grove, Jay and Bernice & Colcord for these services.
PLEASE NOTE THE BALLOT SAYS “Said revenue is to be deposited int he general revenue fund of the County to be used only for the acquisition, establishment and operation of Solid Wast Services FOR THE PEOPLE OF DELAWARE COUNTY,
…….EVERYONE BUT…COUNTY CITIZENS that live in cities and have their trash picked up by independent trash haulers.
WHY CITIZENS FROM GROVE, JAY, BERNICE and COLCORD GET GOUGED BY THE AUTHORITY!
Here’s the skinny,
Rural citizens of Delaware County bring their trash to collection points throughout the county, the Green Boxes or Convenience Centers, and our Solid Waste Authority collects this trash, hauls it to a collection point called a transfer station, where huge trucks then haul the trash refuse to a Cherokee owned landfill in Tulsa. This is all paid for by the ½ cent sales we all pay, a $2 Million Dollar income stream for the TRUST.
But when citizens from Grove, Jay, Colcord and Bernice hire a local trash hauler to come to their door and pick up their trash, this same County Solid Waste Authority charges these citizens to receive their trash, and won’t accept it, or haul it to Tulsa without a $50 per ton charge. All citizens of Delaware County were to have their trash collected and hauled to Tulsa and paid for by the ½ cent sales tax!
Transient folks on their way thru town are charged the same $50 per ton. Oops, just remembered this Authority has just raised the costs for Bernice, Grove, Jay and Colcord to $55.00 per ton.
In reviewing the last published audit of this authority, ending in June 2012, the trust had revenues of $2,239,536.70, .
$1,566,709.30 from the sales taxes on all Delaware County citizens and our guests.
$672,259 from (solid waste revenues), which over half is from special fees assessed citizens of Grove, Jay and Bernice.
Receiving accurate numbers from the Authority has been difficult at best, with their General Manager refusing an interview until they had a private meeting with County Attorney Eddy Wyant. First attempts at determining what portion of the solid waste revenues were from Bernice Sanitation; the authority provided a ream of 70 pages, single-spaced lists of financial entries, with no totals. Yea right.
Subsequent requests have yielded that Bernice Sanitations’ charges for 2011 were $384,604, most of which is taxpayers from Grove, Jay, Bernice and Colcord. 2012 estimates are about the same.
According to Delaware County Solid Waste Trust Authority General Manager Larry Burrow, “In 1989 The Green Boxes were created to serve non incorporated areas, and we started off with collections of 15-18 tons per day in refuse, now it is up to 158-160 tons per day”. Burrow said that he manages 32 Green Dumpsters sites, and picked up trash from these sites every 24 hours. He hauls solid waste to a Cherokee Indian owned and operated solid waste site outside Tulsa and uses 4 trucks, 9 trailers and makes 2 trips per day to Tulsa for disposal.
Burrow says “Delaware County population of 41,438 dumps 2500 tons per month, averaging 4.5 lbs of trash per day per person”.
When asked how Burrow can justify charging Grove, Jay, Bernice and Colcord citizens extra money to receive their trash, Borrow explains that they only do dumpsters for free, and charge the towns because they use private haulers
At the close of this 11minute interview, Mr. Burrows admits that residents from Grove, Jay, Bernice and Colcord, get no benefit from his $2+ million dollar operation, unless they bring a couch or refrigerator to him for disposal.
Mr. Burrows is ok with the Authority charging residents from these towns, and if you don’t like it you can bring your own trash out to the collection point, and they will accept it without charge.
Mr. Burrows makes clear that if the residents of these four towns use a commercial hauler, and if a hauler gets paid, the hauler will get charged at the transfer station at $55/ton.
Mr. Howard Sitton, one of the Trustees of the Solid Waste Trust Authority, said ” Thats just the way it is,” when asked about Grove being charged extra to accept their trash, “and its not going to change!” commented the Trustee. “In fact, my term expires in January, and why don’t you get Commissioner Tom Sanders to appoint you to the board, that’d be ok with me.” Sitton said. “You have no idea the costs to keep this operation going, and paying salaries plus 18% benefits. I support these benefits, and would not want to cut back on them at all”, said Sitton.
When asked about Bernice Sanitations’ efforts underway to build their own Transfer Station and the Authority would loose the $350.000 per year, Sitton said “I think that would be fine, we could probably lay off half our employees, and that would relieve us of most of our trips to Tulsa for landfill.”
Former County Commissions Dave Kendrick and Ken Crowder sit with Sitton on the Authority.
Following is the 2012 Audit of the Solid Waste Authority . The Auditors mention that it looks like serious problems can occur when you have the same office staff person open the mail, opens the checks, makes the deposits, writes the checks, pays the bills, and there is only one person involved in handling all those functions. 2012_delaware_co_solid_waste_authorityfinal_oykh
SAVING DELAWARE COUNTY MONEY BY RECYCLING TRASH
The Delaware County Solid Waste Trust Authority delivers trash to a Cherokee Indian owned landfill just north east of Tulsa, and pays the landfill, $17.00 per ton, for an expense of $469,685 in 2012.
In 2008, Covanta’s Trash to Energy Plant in Tulsa proposed to the Authority that they bring trash to their new facility where it will be converted to energy for only $12.00 per ton. The proposal would help save the land, and their proposal would save Delaware county taxpayers $177,180 per year.
A summary of their proposal is:
ENERGY FROM WASTE
PRICE AT COVANTA VS. LANDFILL
CURRENT DISPOSAL SERVICE
2400 tons per month x $17 per ton $40,800.00 per month
PROPOSED COVANTA DISPOSAL SERVICE
2400 tons per month x $12 per ton $28,800.00 per month
Total estimated monthly savings $12,000.00 per month
Total estimated yearly savings $144,000.00
Total Impact on Savings
Savings on labor but additional fuel $8,580.00
Savings from tires and maintenance $24,000.00
Savings on landfill fees $144,000.00
TOTAL YEARLY SAVINGS $177,180.00 per year
The entire proposal is attached as a pdf, as received from Covanta officials after invoking the Freedom of Information Act. Covanta Sustainable Solution for Delaware Co Oklahoma Although this document contains privileged information, this document was presented to the Solid Waste Trust Authority in December 2008, and therefore is public information. Reluctantly, Covanta officials released this copy.
In reviewing the Covanta proposal with Solid Waste Trust Authority General Manager Larry Burrows, Burrows believes there would not be much savings from the Covanta proposal, and feels doing business with the Cherokee Landfill is the way to go.
Covanta Tulsa Renewable Energy processes 1,125 tons-per-day of solid waste, generating up to 240,000 pounds-per-hour of steam. The steam can be used to power a turbine generator to produce 16.8 megawatts of clean, renewable energy that is sold to Public Service Company of Oklahoma. However, on a more regular basis, the steam is sold to Holly Frontier, Inc. (an independent refiner), adjacent to the facility, and used in the refining process. This offsets the need for the refinery to use fossil fuels to generate their own steam.
WHO VOTED FOR THIS DEAL?
As you can see, the 1/2 cent sales tax passed by 166 votes, and was carried by south county. Grove and other communities in Delaware contribute most of the $1,566,709.30 sales taxes collected to run the county trust authority, but receive no direct benefit other than having a cleaner county roads.
