Invitations out for regional waste system

Local governments will get their invitations next week to join a new regional garbage system.

They’ll have until Oct. 3 to decide whether to accept the offer and help establish the new Spokane Regional Solid Waste Management Alliance.

Spokane is not expected to join until next spring, if at all, but the proposed interlocal agreement will allow the city to join whenever it wishes.

The new alliance will operate as a nonprofit corporation, controlled by member governments.

Like the current Spokane Regional Solid Waste System, the alliance would be open to all cities and towns in the county as well as unincorporated areas governed by Spokane County commissioners.

The agreement to be presented next week to prospective members was drafted by a task force headed by County Commissioner Al French. The panel sprang from a two-day regional meeting in February.

Municipal governments throughout the county agreed to forge a system that would let them choose the most cost-effective way to dispose of their garbage.

The current system is owned and operated by the city of Spokane, and garbage generally is sent to landfills only if Spokane’s Waste-to-Energy Plant can’t handle it. Some members believe long-haul landfills may be less expensive.

County commissioners control major expenditures under the current system, but the county’s smaller cities and towns have no direct representation.

Spokane City Administrator Ted Danek said the city has made no decision on whether to join the new alliance.

“My advice to the mayor and council is going to be that we probably need to wait … to see how the alliance is going to dispose of the waste stream,” Danek said.

The dilemma for city officials is that they need to send all the city’s garbage to the Waste-to-Energy Plant if the facility is to remain viable. But alliance members must let the organization decide where to send their waste.

“We can’t have a stranded asset,” Danek said.

City officials plan to offer the plant’s services to the alliance as a vendor. Mayor Mary Verner told the Greater Spokane Incorporated business organization this week that rising fuel prices may make the plant more attractive in comparison with long-haul landfills.

However, without a long-term claim to all the garbage in the county, the city can no longer afford a proposed extension of its contract with the incinerator operator, Wheelabrator Spokane.

A tentative agreement that called for Wheelabrator to provide $18 million worth of plant improvements is being renegotiated. Danek declined to discuss the talks but said they are “close to a conclusion.”

Under the new regional garbage system, each member government will have a seat on the board of directors. A two-part, weighted voting system is intended to balance the interests of big and small governments.