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Trash: a complicated commodity for Pasco County

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 26, 2009

That bag of trash sitting on the curb this morning may have no value to you, but it's worth a lot of money to the county officials charged with getting rid of it.

Pasco County commissioners, for example, will spend more than $1 million this year to ship thousands of tons of trash to Osceola County for disposal. Hernando County, on the other hand, could spend twice that over the next 12 months shipping its extra trash to Pasco.

Commissioners approved a deal this week that will bring as much as 50,000 tons of Hernando County garbage into Pasco at a cost of $56.70 per ton. The bulk of that trash is likely to end up in Osceola County, though, helping Pasco keep its end of a 30,000-ton-a-year deal it signed with trash-hauler Waste Services in 2007

Those deals show the lengths local governments will go to find a final resting place for all the garbage their residents produce. For Pasco, the deals are an indicator of how county officials are still trying to deal with the effects of the housing boom and bust.

The county's deal with Waste Services started last year and runs until 2012. Pasco has budgeted $1.2 million to satisfy the contract this year.

When the county signed the Waste Services deal, Pasco was taking in 20 percent more trash than it could burn at its incinerator.

Commissioners saw Osceola County's regional landfill as the cheapest, quickest way to get rid of mountains of garbage that threatened to consume precious space in the county's Hays Road landfill, which is reserved for incinerator ash.

At the time, it seemed like a good deal, but the recession is making it less so. The county has produced less trash in the past year because fewer people have been moving into the county and buying fewer things; but the deal remains in place, meaning the county is on the hook for making payments, regardless of how much trash it sends to Osceola.

"We're just making that contract," said John Power, Pasco's solid waste manager.

Pasco's deal with Hernando went into effect this week, though it's unclear when the trash will start moving this way. The deal allows Pasco to benefit from Hernando's troubles in expanding its landfill. The county has run into trouble getting state permits for the expansion.

In fact, even though Pasco will continue paying Osceola County, it may actually come out ahead: Hernando's disposal fees could amount to more than what Pasco will be spending to send trash out of the county.

"We can make it work," Power said.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 731-8168.

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