HRRA to town: Generate more trash

KENT —  The town is being penalized for recycling  too much waste,  according to First Selectman Bruce Adams. He told the Board of Selectmen at their meeting Sept. 7 that the Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority (which collects the trash from the town’s transfer station), said the town did not produce enough solid waste in fiscal 2009. The fiscal year ended June 30.

The HRRA is a regional waste management and recycling authority that collects trash from 11 towns in western Connecticut.

At the meeting, Adams said the town only produced 75 percent of the solid waste it was contracted to produce in fiscal 2009.

“If the other member towns in the HRRA had not overproduced their waste we would have been hit with a pretty hefty fine,� Adams said. “We will not get fined this year or next year. However, we could get fined in 2012.�

Adams believes the town is being penalized for recycling more and for throwing less waste in the general trash hopper.

“We are being held to a [waste tonnage] number that was first agreed upon in 1993,� Adams said. “Also, I think that there are some fairly good-sized trash haulers in Kent who are taking their trash elsewhere. There is not much the town can do to stop them.�

After the meeting, The Lakeville Journal contacted Cheryl Reedy, the director of HRRA, who said the town produced 1,233 tons of solid waste in fiscal 2009.

Under the contract with the HRRA, the town is supposed produce 1,624 tons of waste per year.

Reedy said the town would not necessarily be fined by the HRRA.

“If they ended up short, what they would have to do is, essentially, buy someone else’s garbage to make up for that number,� Reedy said. “It’s not a fine. It’s just that they have to make good on their contractual agreement.�

Reedy confirmed that the contract setting the amount of solid waste that each town must produce was originally set in 1993.

“I do think it’s important for people to know that the benchmark [for solid waste production] was whatever the town’s produced during that first year,� Reedy said. “It came from each town and it was not an arbitrary number. Kent has never had a problem in meeting its guaranteed tonnage. In fact, it has always been well over its number up until this year.�

At the selectmen’s meeting, Adams said he plans to meet with the HRRA some time later in the month.

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