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Hillsborough's Trash Surprise Echoes Here

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By TOM JACKSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 19, 2008

If Pasco County's tireless fans of garbage-burning noticed the news coming out of Hillsborough County several days back, they haven't had much to say about it. Perhaps that's because what Hillsborough commissioners learned, and spent several days reeling from, previews a similar cornflake-spewing moment for Pasco's elected leaders.

To recap: Caught between a smokestack and a rising mountain of refuse, Hillsborough County commissioners reaffirmed their reputation for gracelessness by choking down a $13.6 million price increase to expand its trash-to-electricity incinerator.

That puts the latest estimate just shy of $140 million, or about 35 percent more than the original stab in the dark our neighbors accepted, in a no-bid genuflection, as gospel in 2004.

Must we point out that the same dull pencils at work there are in charge of Pasco's incinerators? Or that the same global market forces that launched the price in Hillsborough are, even now, escalating the wild guess beyond which Pasco commissioners have been predicating their next rubbish-disposal move?

Better Guess Again

In September, the home team staked itself to seeking a $160 million bond to buy a new furnace. That authorization is looking about $17 million light.

Ah, but that's OK, say the Friends of the Incinerator. By statute, Florida Power must buy the electricity produced by Pasco's trash-to-energy boilers, and the addition will bump the plant's annual production by about a third, to about $22 million. Why, that extra $7.2 million each year could pay for the expansion in no time ... also known as roughly 31 years, assuming a bond interest rate in the lower 3s. You know. Just long enough for the operation to have achieved obsolescence.

None of this troubles Friends of the Incinerator, none of whom claim homesteads near the plant. Instead, they worry more about the alternative, a proposed composting landfill and recycling operating in the east Pasco hills that would be operated by a (gasp!) private company hoping to turn (oh, the humanity!) a profit.

You would think Covanta Energy of Pasco performs its operational services pro bono. Not so: Its parent, Covanta Holding Corp., is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (CVL closed Friday down $0.02 at $26.47) where, to quote "Wall Street" character Gordon Gekko, "Greed is good."

Evidently this is fine with Friends of the Incinerator because Covanta is the profiteer they know. Otherwise, using the money-making motive of the landfill group, Angelo's Aggregate Materials, as a reason to prefer saddling taxpayers with a nine-figure mortgage just doesn't wash.

What Landfill Would, Wouldn't Be

It's clear that the incinerator-expansion backers are digging in. Their signs - Stop the East Pasco Landfill - dot lawns from Trilby to Crystal Springs, with a concentration in Dade City, which appears swimming up to the historic courthouse's clock tower in panicked misinformation.

Bottom line: If the Angelo's application clears state Department of Environmental Protection muster, the eventual landfill - its size, what it can accept and from where, and every other detail - would be exactly what Pasco County's permit says it could be, no more, no less, no surprises.

As Hillsborough County learned recently, the same cannot be said of its dealings with Covanta.

Columnist Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.

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