[StBernard] Did St. Bernard Parish pay for others' trash?

[Westley Annis]

Did St. Bernard Parish pay for others' trash?

10:44 PM CST on Monday, November 3, 2008

Lee Zurik / Eyewitness News 

As Carnival 2008 came to a close about nine months ago, crews hit the
streets of New Orleans, to clean up piles of trash that city leaders said
rivaled pre-Katrina amounts. 


St. Bernard keeps company from dumping for now 
"I think this year was more like normal, like pre-Katrina," said city
Sanitation Department director Veronica White on Ash Wednesday.  "This year,
it was huge." 


Huge numbers of trash would likely mean huge numbers at Orleans Parish's
designated landfill, River Birch, on the west bank. 


City records show that in February, the parish's three trash haulers, SDT,
Richard's Disposal and Metro Disposal, along with the Sheriff, Parkways
Department and Sewerage and Water Board, brought 16,700 tons of trash to the
landfill. 


In the month of February, with all of the Carnival debris, Orleans Parish
collected under 17,000 tons.  That same month, SDT Waste and Debris Services
brought 12,400 tons of trash to the landfill from St. Bernard.  New Orleans
had only an additional 4,000 tons than Orleans, with about ten times the
population as St. Bernard, and thousands of tourists in the city at the time
as well. 


When asked whether he believes St. Bernard paid for New Orleans garbage in
this instance, Taffaro said "I think it's becoming more and more likely that
that is the case, yes." 


Following a public records request by Eyewitness News, the city of New
Orleans produced 21 months of billings from the landfill, covering the time
since SDT took over the French Quarter and Central Business District trash
contract in January 2007.  


Before SDT began operating a waste transfer station in St. Bernard, the
company brought an average of about 1,000 tons of New Orleans trash to the
landfill each month.  However, when that transfer station opened, and debris
from all over the metro area was mixed together, city records show the New
Orleans numbers began to decline to just 185 tons in August 2007.  


For four straight months, October, November, December 2007 and January 2008,
the city of New Orleans was not billed for a single truckload of garbage
brought to the landfill by SDT. 


For the past nine months, the numbers have stayed mostly in the low to
mid-hundreds, and during those four months when SDT did not charge New
Orleans for any debris, St. Bernard had 9,000, 10,000, 11,000 and 12,000
tons of trash. 


"The tonnage you are showing me here for Orleans are no comparisons to St.
Bernard numbers," Taffaro said.  "They are much, much lower obviously.  What
concerns me is if the Paris Road was truly being used as a transfer site for
the metro area, it underscores our concern that maybe other municipalities'
waste was getting into St. Bernard's stream and we were getting billed for
it." 


So why isn't SDT billing Orleans Parish for all of its trash? 


SDT Waste & Debris Services owner Sidney Torres IV said he is declining to
do any more on-camera interviews with WWL-TV.  


Monday morning, through his public relations person, Torres said during
those four months the city didn't receive a landfill bill, "SDT paid the
River Birch disposal fees."  Torres says the city of New Orleans "felt its
disposal fees were higher than expected for March, April, and May of 2007"
and "to satisfy the city, SDT paid the disposal bills for the months of
October 2007 through January 2008." 


So Torres is saying three months of high billings to the city led to four
months of no charges by the landfill from SDT.  That is an agreement two
members of the New Orleans city council's sanitation committee, Stacy Head
and Shelley Midura, said they never heard about. 


For almost two weeks, WWL has been trying to get an interview with city
sanitation director Veronica White, but the station's requests have been
repeatedly denied.  


Last Friday morning, Mayor Ray Nagin's communications department e-mailed
the station to say White could finally do an interview "at noon," and
minutes later another e-mail came with the location of that interview.  But
just 12 minutes later, that interview was cancelled.  


Late Friday afternoon, Eyewitness News received a statement from Veronica
White, which said "SDT is in full compliance with there (sic) contractual
agreement with the city of New Orleans." 


In another development on Monday, St. Bernard Parish announced a transfer
station being operated in the parish will now only be open to St. Bernard
residents, and will no longer allow SDT trucks from all over the metro area
to dump trash.  Taffaro said that transfer station may have led to the
parish paying for other parishes' trash and closing it, Taffaro said, will
allow the parish to get a better handle on just how much trash it is
producing.