Harrisburg has a total of $458 million in outstanding claims, but the largest chunk of that debt by far comes courtesy of the project derisively referred to as the “incinerator from hell,” the waste-to-energy facility that has amassed $310 million of it. The total debt is five times what the city has in its general fund, according to Stateline newspaper.
How did it happen? The history of the trash-to-energy incinerator is a saga of lofty intentions undone by incompetence. Former Mayor Stephen Reed, turned out of office in 2010 after 28 years, was largely responsible for the debacle, which began in 2003. The Harrisburg Authority, the public entity charged with providing solid waste management services for the city, approved a plan to retrofit Harrisburg’s incinerator for $120 million. It was a response to the reality that the original facility, built in 1972, frequently broke down. Furthermore, tests revealed that the facility’s lone smokestack, whose dark colored output occasionally floated over the city, contained highly toxic mercury and dioxin contaminants.
When Reed became mayor, the facility built to turn garbage into energy — and a municipal expense into a profit — was losing money. Reed stopped the bleeding and turned the incinerator into a profitable enterprise by hiring a professional management staff, and, in the early 1990s, selling it to the Harrisburg Authority, whose board was appointed by the mayor. The move brought money into the city coffers and insulated city politicians from any blame for rising trash disposal rates. Rates which are now some of the highest in the nation.
The amendment of the Clean Air Act imposed more stringent emission standards on the incinerator, and when one of its two boilers failed to meet EPA dioxin standards, environmental officials shut the facility down in December of 2003. At that point the city still owed $104 million on it. They decided the lesser of two evils was to issue $120 million in new debt and upgrade the facility, rather than close it and take the loss, hoping the improvements would garner enough of a profit to cover both the old and new debt. Barlow Projects Inc., based in Fort Collins, CO got the contract, primarily for being the cheapest bidder by far–and despite the fact they had never built anything that large. Their low-ball bid, $40 million less than the others, concerned many city officials, but reality intruded: there was no way the city could afford anything more expensive.
-read on into this mess-
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