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MAINTAINING FINANCIAL STABILITY
Not long ago, CRRA’s future was clouded. Its Mid-Connecticut Project had lost $220 million in the Enron bankruptcy, and a new board of directors and management team were put into place to restore the agency’s financial stability.
Thanks to an aggressive plan of cost-cutting, contract renegotiation and revenue enhancement, the Mid-Connecticut Project is on solid financial footing. And with the receipt of $111 million from its sale of the Enron banrkuptcy claim, the Mid-Connecticut Project should have stable disposal fees for the forseeable future.
That means the CRRA administration can focus more of its energies on the agency’s core mission – planning for the future.
PLANNING FOR POST-CONTRACT YEARS
Make no mistake – the future is approaching quickly. For instance, the interlocal agreement that created the Bridgeport Project expires in 2008, but those cities and towns will need ways to get rid of their trash beyond that expiration date. And as CRRA’s other projects dissolve, more towns will look to CRRA for cost-effective, environmentally sound disposal solutions.
CRRA is hard at work to develop those solutions.
PROMOTING BENEFICIAL ASH REUSE
The resources recovery process – which combines recycling with conversion of solid waste into electricity – reduces the waste stream by as much as 80 to 85 percent. Even with that reduction, Connecticut still has a pressing need for landfill capacity.
Waste-to-energy plants produce ash, and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) requires that ash to be deposited into specially engineered double-lined disposal areas. There are only two such areas in Connecticut – one at CRRA’s Hartford landfill, the other is a privately-owned site in eastern Connecticut. Publicly owned capacity is essential to keeping disposal fees reasonable.
CRRA believes that DEP should facilitate beneficial ash reuse. In Japan and other foreign countries, as much as 50 percent of ash produced by WTE facilities is used for purposes such as road construction, concrete and brownfields reclamation. Putting ash to work extends the life of ash landfills. The University Ash Consortium is working on ways to safely reuse this material.
IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL NEW LANDFILL SITES IN CONNECTICUT
Further, there is some waste – bulky items such as old furniture and rolls of carpeting, and construction and demolition debris – that cannot be processed by WTE plants and thus must be disposed of in landfills. There are only a handful of solid waste landfills still open in Connecticut, and those that remain are expected to be full in a few years. In 2004, CRRA began an exhaustive study of the entire state, looking to identify potential sites for one or more new landfills for disposal of solid waste, process residue, bulky and non-processible waste and ash residue.
UPDATING FACILITIES & TECHNOLOGY
CRRA is exploring other alternatives as well:
- Expanding existing trash-to-energy plants or building a new plant.
- Developing intermodal transportation facilities for shipping of waste and ash to out-of-state disposal sites.
- Developing new technologies.
FUTURE OF THE HARTFORD LANDFILL
CRRA is planning for the future of the Hartford landfill, which will receive its final delivery of waste in 2008. Click here to find out more and share your thoughts.
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