Tue, 12/29/2020 - 5:45pm

ROCKPORT —When the Mid-Coast Solid Waste Corporation Board of Directors convene Dec. 30 via Zoom they will be voting on two major pieces of business: 1) to switch the four-town disposal contract to a company in Norridgewock, and 2) to approve a budget for fiscal year 2022.

The meting begins at 6:30 p.m., will be held via teleconference through Zoom and streamed at youtube.com/TownofCamdenMaine. Citizens may also join via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85825843109.

Attendees can request speaking privileges when the Chair acknowledges public comment or questions during the meeting.

The contract with Waste Management Disposal Services of Maine, in Norridgewick, replaces the existing contract with the Scarborough-based ecomaine, which the four towns of Camden, Hope, Lincolnville and Rockport, through their jointly held Mid-Coast Solid Waste Corp., have engaged with for the past three years.

While the Rockport transfer station still takes fill — demolition and other debris — the household trash is trucked elsewhere. Prior to ecomaine, the trash had gone to PERC, the incinerator in Orrington, since the 1980s.

This year, MCSW is coming to the end of the ecomaine contract and has before it a proposal to sign a three-year contract, July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2024, with Waste Management, in Norridgewock. Upon mutual consent the parties may negotiate in good faith to extend the agreement for two one-year periods.

The publicly-held Waste Management, based in Houston, Texas, has two facilities in Maine, one in Portland, the other in Norridgewock.

Waste Management will take the “acceptable” and special waste of the four towns. It will not accept hazardous waste.

MCSW will pay Waste Management $65 a ton until June 30, 2022. Charges after the first year shall be increased annually at a fixed rate of 4.5% per year.

At the same Dec. 30 meeting, the MCSW board will also consider the proposed $2.26 million 2022 budget. That budget represents a $60,000 increase from the 2021 $2.2 million.

See attached PDF for the proposed budget and meeting packet, including manager’s report.

The facility anticipates $2.2 million in revenue to offset that proposed budget.

Increases include salary hikes, contracting the bookkeeping with Camden, and increasing safety training. It also includes decreasing the payment in lieu of taxes to the town of Rockport from $6,000 to $4,379. That reduction reflects leaving out the school portion of local taxes.

Other increases reflect labor wages for six full-time, one maintenance mechanic and one part-time operator, as well as increases to the benefits lines (health insurance, FICA and Medicare, retirement and workers’ compensation).

The budget also allows for sheetrock diversion fees and costs associated with managing leachate from Jacob’s Quarry.

The facility anticipates the bulk of its revenue to derive from pay-per-bag disposal ($475,000) and from per-ton fee ($475,000 ) disposal, as well as $523,611 in assessment from each of the towns, and other assorted revenue streams from bulk metal sales and baled commodities.

The full meeting agenda follows:

SPublic & Director Comments (please limit public comment to non-agenda items)