Spokane Waste to Energy
spokane solid waste managementAdvancing intelligent waste management solutions
 

Landfill Closure Financing


Wheelabrator Implicated in Scam


 

 

 
The City of Spokane borrowed $16.5 million to close the Northside Landfill and Spokane County borrowed $20 million to close their 3 landfills. Due to an illegal accounting scheme, the City of Spokane will pay $24.5 million towards their loan, and take $19 million in rebates. The County will pay $36.5 million towards their loan and received no rebates.  Here's how...

The Regional System charges a $98 per ton tipping fee, of which $14.67 is set aside for landfill closure (referred  to as Closure Component, this rate was set by the City of Spokane). This produced about $5 million in revenue from 335,000 tons of solid waste in 2006, which was split nearly evenly between the county and the city (168,000 tons / 167,000 tons).

The City of Spokane received $2.5 million, and spent $900,000 towards debt service on their $16.5 million landfill closure loan, and took the remaining $1.6 million dollars as a rebate.

The County also received $2.5 million, and spent $2.24 million towards debt service on their $20 million landfill closure loan, with the City wrongfully taking the remainder ($255,000) for payments to Regional Cities of Airway Heights, Medical Lake, Cheney and Fairchild AFB.

The Spokane County interlocal agreement states that the county is solely responsible for paying the Regional City rebates only if a Regional City has been assigned landfill closure liability by CERCLA (Superfund), and any money allocated to a Regional City from the County's Landfill Closure Component must be used to close a landfill.

None of the Regional Cities has been assigned liability for any landfill closures, and none of the Regional Cities are paying to close any landfills.

The City of Spokane has chosen to disregard the City / County Interlocal Agreement, and has placed the burden of refunding the selected Regional Cities from the County portion of the Landfill Closure Component. The City of Spokane has set the Landfill Closure Component artificially high to cover this added cost to the County. Why? Because, the higher the Landfill Closure Component, the larger the rebate to the City of Spokane (currently $1.6 million). The City of Spokane has taken $11,233,303* in rebates since 1996, and may be responsible for refunding $1,848,000 (plus $937,490 interest) to the Spokane County ratepayers for setting the Closure Component to high.

*The City of Spokane is scheduled to take $19,000,000 in rebates through the year 2011.

CITY / COUNTY Landfill Closure Component Distributions

                 
Year City of Spokane Landfill Closure Component
(TOTAL)		 City of Spokane Rebate Spokane County
Landfill Closure Component
(TOTAL)		 Spokane County Landfill Closure Component
(applied to debt)
 		 Regional City Payments City share of
Landfill Component
for Regional Cities		 6% interest rate applied to unpaid funds Interest Due from City Total Due from City of Spokane
1992  2,255,453   1,923,516  1,923,516          
1993 1,315,357   1,078,695  1,019,176 59,519 32,000 1.26 40,320 72,320
1994 1,975,102   1,763,559  1,716,679 46,880 25,000 1.13 28,250 53,250
1995 2,075,238   1,851,230  1,471,400 379,830 200,000 1.01 202,000 402,000
1996 1,808,825 599,994 1,881,845  1,757,553 124,292 65,000 0.90 58,500 123,500
1997 2,077,365 799,992 2,282,956  1,729,730 553,266 300,000 0.79 237,000 537,000
1998 2,096,431 799,992 1,583,984  1,380,497 203,487 110,000 0.69 75,900 185,900
1999 2,212,696 799,992 1,929,094  1,724,205 204,890 110,000 0.59 64,900 174,900
2000 2,247,712 799,992 2,009,614  1,795,750 213,865 113,000 0.50 56,500 169,500
2001 2,311,549 800,000 2,082,091  1,859,395 222,696 120,000 0.42 50,400 170,400
2002 2,361,752 1,075,000 2,173,691  1,939,543 234,148 125,000 0.34 42,500 167,500
2003 2,405,412 1,231,257 2,283,097  2,041,214 241,883 126,000 0.26 32,760 158,760
2004 2,552,463 1,325,004 2,443,070  2,186,898 256,172 130,000 0.19 24,700 154,700
2005 2,553,226 1,410,413 2,541,253  2,277,507 263,746 135,000 0.12 16,080 150,080
2006 2,490,541 1,591,667 2,493,540  2,238,154 255,387 128,000 0.06 7,680 135,680
2007* 2,500,000 1,600,000 2,520,000 2,260,000 260,000 130,000 0                - 130,000
                 
35,239,122 12,833,303 32,841,235  29,361,217 3,550,000 1,848,000   937,490  2,785,490
*projected                  

Spokane Waste to Energy - Advancing intelligent waste management solutions.