After receiving higher-than-expected bids from companies interested in disposing of the county’s waste, New Hanover County commissioners aren’t convinced that privatization of solid waste handling and shipment of waste to a regional landfill is the best option after all.

The commissioners met in a work session Monday after the board’s regular meeting. They reviewed the companies’ bids as well as the cost estimate from the county’s own environmental management department. Joe Suleyman, the county’s environmental management director, was present to answer questions from the commissioners.

After issuing a request for proposals late last fall, the county received bids from Waste Industries and Waste Management by the Dec. 31 deadline. In March, Waste Industries submitted a second proposal, called Alternate W, with a lower price tag than that of its original bid. After analysis of the bids by the county’s finance department, it appears that all three proposals would result in higher tipping fees that what the county currently charges.

According to the county’s financial analysis, the Waste Industries proposal would increase the 10-year average tip fee – the charge to dump one ton of waste into a landfill – from the county’s current level of $59 to $68.10. Waste Management’s proposal would up the tip fee to a 10-year average of $81.32 per ton. Alternate W cost weighs in at average rate of $61.20 per ton, Suleyman wrote in an email Monday afternoon.

Costs for the first year of private waste management services would be higher, Suleyman said in his email, because of major capital project investments. Long-term, the costs of hauling municipal solid waste to a landfill either in Sampson County (the Waste Industries proposal) or Robeson County (Waste Management’s solution) would continue to be a factor in the tip fee.

The waste management issue, which commissioners have discussed, studied and on which they have deferred action for several years, stems from the limited remaining life of the New Hanover landfill.

But there may be more life in that old landfill yet. If the county can win approval from the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources to open a 90-acre additional landfill on a 277-acre parcel to the south of its current 400-acre landfill, it could extend waste disposal capacity by about 15 years, Suleyman said in the email.

“We expect within the next few months to submit an application to permit the southern property,” Suleyman wrote in his email. “Within the design documents, we have engineered the future cells to have 3:1 side slopes (versus the current 4:1) and increase the vertical limit from 170 to 270 feet. Additional airspace would be available, to the tune of 15 years or 4,200,000 cubic yards.”
 
Airspace is the coin of the landfill realm. Suleyman explained that it is the measure of a landfill’s capacity: the amount of space – usually measured in cubic yards – that waste in a landfill can occupy.
 
At Monday morning’s work session, commissioners chairman Woody White invited representatives from both bidders to correct his impression that private waste management and hauling would be more expensive than the same services provided by the county. David Pepper, representing Waste Industries, said that he had not come to the session prepared to make a presentation and questioned whether the estimated county costs included all the same elements that were required of the bidders.
 
County manager Chris Coudriet affirmed that the county waste management costs were “apples to apples” comparisons with those of the bidders.
 
Commissioners decided to delay a decision on its waste management plan to give the two bidders an opportunity to come back with further information. No firm date was set to address the issue again.