[StBernard] 4 Investigates: Who pays for where SDT dumps its trash?

[Westley Annis]

Editors note: WWL's web site was down most of this morning, but I finally
was able to access it this morning. WWL says it will air another report on
Monday night at 10.
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4 Investigates: Who pays for where SDT dumps its trash? 

11:43 AM CDT on Friday, October 31, 2008

Lee Zurik / Eyewitness News 


>From pre-Katrina obscurity to post-storm stardom, Sidney Torres has been

called "the Rembrandt of refuse," even a perfect mayor for New Orleans by
one local newspaper columnist 

"There was an opportunity there at the time the city was in need," Torres
said. 

But has Torres used that opportunity to dump potentially millions of dollars
of his costs onto local parishes he serves? 

Follow the trail 

Eyewitness News spent two months investigating SDT and the local garbage
industry.  For days and nights, WWL-TV crews followed SDT's trucks, and the
findings raise many questions.  

To understand this story, it is important to know the difference between
residential and commercial garbage contracts.  SDT's agreements with the
City of New Orleans and St. Bernard are for homes and small businesses.
Torres is paid to pick up the trash.  The parish pays the fee for dumping
garbage at the landfill.  For commercial accounts, local businesses pay SDT
to pick up trash, but SDT has to pay the cost of dumping that garbage at the
landfill.  Industry insiders say that dumping or disposal fee is typically
more than 30 percent of their cost. 

At least one parish president raises the question: Is SDT paying the
disposal fee for all of its commercial garbage? 

"We believe we are paying for more debris then really what we were
generating in St. Bernard," said St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro.


Eyewitness News obtained almost four years worth of records from St. Bernard
Parish, with the goal of seeing how much trash the parish was billed for by
the designated landfill: River Birch on the West Bank. 

Also Online
 
St. Bernard Trash vs. Population 

SDT's response 

Taffaro's letter to SDT 
Big numbers in St. Bernard 

Before Hurricane Katrina, with more than 67,000 residents, St. Bernard
Parish's former trash hauler, Waste Management, dumped an average of about
4,000 tons of trash from St. Bernard per month. 

Now, if the 35,000 or so people living in St. Bernard put the same amount of
trash curbside twice a week, about 2,000 tons of trash should be generated
per month. 

But 10 months after SDT took over the contract, the numbers began to
steadily rise.  In July 2007, with less than half of the parish's population
back, St. Bernard generated more than 4,500 tons of everyday trash.  That
means that half the residents produced more than the pre-Katrina tonnage.
The SDT curbside contract does not include debris generated by demolition in
St. Bernard. 

In November 2007, that amount topped 10,000 tons, and for two months it was
more than 12,000, more than three times the pre-Katrina amount, with less
than half the population.  From April until August 2008, St. Bernard has
averaged around 8,000 tons per month. 

According to St. Bernard parish officials, it's this extra tonnage that's
costing taxpayers a lot of money. 

"We probably have been in the neighborhood of $1.8 million or so," said
Taffaro, the parish president. 

"You cannot compare pre-Katrina or numbers after Katrina to today,"
countered Sidney Torres.  "You had a parish completely under water." 

Torres said he can explain the huge rise in cost.  He said the tonnage
increase coincided with the opening of a waste transfer station in St.
Bernard, which is operated by SDT. 

The station allows St. Bernard residents to drop off trash, and some
construction debris.  The parish pays for the disposal of that material, an
amount which according to Torres has grown as more people have returned to
St. Bernard since the storm. 

"It's the new construction and remodeling of what people are doing in their
homes," said Torres. 

If that's true, that means in February, when the River Birch landfill billed
St. Bernard for more than 12,000 tons of trash, residents would have needed
to throw away enough garbage and debris to fill one of the large SDT trucks
seen in local neighborhoods to capacity 29 times each day of that month. 

Records also show St. Bernard Parish got bills from SDT for large, 30-yard
containers.  The bill was $380 for each bin placed at the transfer station
for residents to fill with debris. SDT billed the parish almost $2 million
for the containers over a 21-month period.  Taffaro said that charge
includes the bin, hauling and the disposal fee of all debris in the
container. 

The 30-yard container bills are on top of the costs the parish is already
paying SDT to pick up trash curbside. 

Justifying costs 

That raises the question: If the parish has separately paid for the disposal
of all debris directly brought to the transfer site by residents, how can
SDT justify saying that it is new construction debris coming to the transfer
station that is leading to the parish's rising landfill cost? 

In a statement, Torres said, "It was a result of St. Bernard residents
bringing large trailers containing new construction and demolition debris
that could not unload into those bins.  Those trailers would dump directly
into the larger pile." 

Also, although FEMA has cut back on its debris pickup, up until August, it
was still being done in St. Bernard. 

"It certainly supports the belief or at least the potential that there's
more than St. Bernard parish being hauled," Taffaro said, "and St. Bernard
was probably paying for debris that wasn't St. Bernard-generated." 

On two days, WWL cameras captured dozens of trucks dumping trash at the
transfer station.  That trash came not only from SDT trucks picking up
curbside in St. Bernard, but also from other parishes like St. Tammany.  One
truck loading up trash on the Northshore eventually dumped its load in St.
Bernard.  All of the trash, both commercial and residential, ends up in the
same pile at that Paris Road transfer station. 

When asked how his crews differentiate between what is St. Bernard trash and
what is outside trash, Torres said "When the trucks roll in the gate, we
know how many commercial trucks we roll in a day and we estimate how many
commercial trucks should be paid for by SDT." 

Trail heads to Orleans 

But this story doesn't stop in St. Bernard Parish. 

In Orleans Parish, on four different nights during four different weeks,
Eyewitness News cameras captured SDT trucks picking up trash from French
Quarter residences, then WWL crews watched the same truck picking up
commercial trash at Cafe du Monde, at Poydras Plaza and also the E&L
building at Poydras Street and Loyola Avenue, mixing commercial trash with
residential garbage. 

It's important to remember the City of New Orleans pays for the disposal of
residential trash, but SDT is supposed to pay for disposal of its large
commercial customers. 

When asked whether his crews are mixing commercial and residential garbage
in Orleans Parish, Torres said, "Not every day.  If a truck cannot make it
to the landfill before it closes, it will come to the transfer station and
SDT pays for that load to go to River Birch." 

But on one morning, WWL cameras saw something different: An SDT truck
picking up residential trash and then later along the route picking up trash
from large businesses, with the garbage going into the same truck.  WWL did
confirm with several of the businesses they do indeed have a commercial
contract with SDT.  Late in the morning, that SDT truck went straight to the
West Bank and the landfill. 

So are Orleans Parish residents paying for big business garbage? 

Torres said if his trucks are able to go directly to River Birch landfill
with trash, they do.  When asked whether Orleans Parish pays for that trash,
Torres answered, "Correct." 

Eyewitness News tried to get an interview with city Sanitation Director
Veronica White, but was told she would be unavailable.  On October 14, WWL
also submitted a records request to the city, asking for all billings from
the landfill from SDT trucks. 

"I don't want my information on the street." 

The city made those records available to WWL on Thursday but the station
still hasn't finished reviewing them. 

Taffaro says what will tell the real story is seeing records that are not
public, the commercial billings to SDT from the landfill.  Taffaro says
those numbers could help show whether commercial trash is being charged to
his parish's account. 

"I am more than happy to share anything, to show anything we do is straight
up and there's no reason to hide anything," Torres said. 

But when WWL asked Torres to see his commercial billings from the landfill,
his public relations person would not provide those documents. 

"I don't want my information on the street, regarding the type of business
we do," Torres said. 

But eight of SDT's competitors didn't mind giving that information to WWL.
In fact, all submitted their commercial numbers and said they were willing
to make them public. 

This is an issue Taffaro says he's been dealing with privately for months,
but now St. Bernard residents are beginning to learn their tax dollars could
be paying for the disposal of someone else's garbage. 

For the month of October, Taffaro says the parish will only pay for 3,000
tons of trash hauled to the landfill by SDT.  

In a letter Thursday to owner Sidney Torres, Taffaro lowered that number to
approximately 1,100 tons for the month of November and beyond. 

Over the summer, St. Bernard approved a monthly $20 garbage fee to deal with
the rising costs. 

Taffaro said Thursday that the parish will not levy that fee until it
finishes investigating the findings of this WWL-TV story.