[StBernard] St. Bernard-SDT Press Release

[Westley Annis]

The Parish of St. Bernard and SDT Waste & Debris announce today they have
resolved all differences in connection with work involving the collection
and hauling of trash and construction debris from the parish's transfer site
once located on Paris Road.  In mid-2007, the Parish and SDT worked toward a
Cooperative Endeavour Agreement by which the Parish would allow its
residents to bring waste and construction debris to its transfer site to
assist parish residents in their recovery efforts.  SDT hauled that waste
and debris to a disposal landfill and was allowed to also use the transfer
site to consolidate disposal of waste generated from SDT's private and other
public contracts.  Since the transfer site had no scales nor monitoring of
who actually delivered to the site, a dispute arose as to how much of the
landfill disposal costs were to be the obligation of St. Bernard Parish and
how much was to be the obligation of SDT. As a result of administrative
intervention and councilmanic investigating, charges from the landfill
continued to decrease throughout 2008 but did not reach acceptable levels. 

 

The parties retained the services of an independent forensic CPA recommended
by the Parish, Harold Asher, who examined voluminous records provided by the
Parish, SDT, and the landfill.  Although the results of Mr. Asher's work
indicate that the value of the services provided by SDT about equal the
payments made by the Parish to the landfill, SDT has nonetheless agreed to
pay the Parish the sum of $204,000 for the use of its transfer site for 17
months and has committed to the continued in-kind support of cleaning St.
Bernard Parish.  No evidence of overbilling or other wrongdoing was found by
the independent accountant.  The work provided by Mr. Asher in his report
brought to light new information and an analysis used by the parties in now
resolving the issues before them. 

 

The parties are pleased that this accounting is now complete and that steps
by the St. Bernard Parish Government have been implemented to assure that no
such accounting dispute can arise in the future.  SDT now directly hauls the
Parish's material to the landfill and its transfer site is no longer in use.


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