By Tom Grace
Cooperstown News Bureau
Otsego County’s Administration
Committee unanimously
voted Monday to advise the
county to get out of the Montgomery-
Otsego-Schoharie Solid
Waste Management Authority.
Administration Committee
Chairman Rep. James Johnson,
R-Otsego, said he believes
the matter will be considered
by the county board early next
year.
MOSA, which does not own
operating landfills, contracts
with Ricelli Enterprises Inc.
of Syracuse to transport and
dispose of waste left by local
haulers at MOSA’s transfer
stations.
The contract is set to expire
at the end of 2010, Johnson said,
so in the coming months, MOSA
will be soliciting bids for new
contracts.
``The committee believes the
county should also look at what
would be available for us if we
decide to go on our own,’’ he
said. ``If we’re going to get out
of MOSA, we really have (to) get
going on this.’’
While the motion puts
the county’s most powerful
committee on record,
the recommendation is
not slated to come to a
vote by the full board,
board Clerk-Auditor
Laura Child said.
To come to a binding
board vote, the resolution
would have to come from
the county’s Solid Waste & Environmental
Concerns Committee,
she noted.
Johnson said the Administration
Committee also
wants to put MOSA on notice
that in soliciting transportation
and disposal
proposals, it should
inquire what would
be available if Otsego
County were no longer a
member.
Administration Committee
member Rep.
Richard Murphy, DOneonta,
said he supported
the motion because he
wants the county board to analyze
whether it would be better
off in or out of MOSA.
If Otsego County leaves
MOSA, it will have to answer
questions such as whether to
handle recyclables itself or
continue to contract for this
service, and whether to have
waste from the northern and
southern transfer stations go
to the same landfill, Murphy
said.
Recently, MOSA Executive
Director Dennis Heaton said
MOSA also will look at proposals
to truck waste from its
transfer stations to separate
landfills.
The 25-year contract
that binds MOSA’s members
together expires in
2014. According to Hans
Arnold, a consultant to
all three MOSA members,
a county may withdraw
early as long as certain
conditions are met.
A primary one is guaranteeing
to the state
Department of Environmental
Conservation that
landfills MOSA has used
will be monitored and, if
need be, remediated well
into the future.
All three counties have
agreed to this, with the Otsego
County Board voting
in early December to pay
for 40 percent of these expenses.
Monday’s vote advising
Otsego County to exit
MOSA comes in the same
month as MOSA’s board
voted to defease, or guarantee,
about $10 million
in debt, a move that will
allow the authority to
lower its tipping fee by
about $20 per ton to about
$86 per ton next month.
This, coupled with
county subsidies, should
make MOSA more competitive
and may help the
counties’ bottom lines.
Still, in the more than
two decades MOSA has
been operating, there
have been more downs
than ups, Johnson noted.
``At the meeting, as we
were talking about getting
out of MOSA, someone
made the comment
that this vote had been
20 years in the making,’’
Johnson said.
