Supervisors discuss landfill contract

Published 2:19 pm Thursday, April 13, 2017

Supervisors in Cumberland County met in closed session during their regular meeting Tuesday to further discuss the host community agreement between the county and Republic Services, a domestic non-hazardous solid waste service provider — the leader of a now defunct landfill once planned for the county.

“No action was taken as a result of the closed session,” County Administrator and County Attorney Vivian Seay Giles said following the meeting.

“As a committed community partner, we work to help counties find responsible, effortless solutions for their emerging waste needs,” a Republic spokesman said in an email to The Herald. “In this case, we were unable to find a mutual solution with Cumberland County and effectively terminated the contract in February 2015 in accordance with its terms. We remain committed to the communities we serve, and we look forward to finalizing this matter soon so that we can all move forward.”

Vivian Seay Giles

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Republic Services Senior Manager of Public Affairs Brad Kiesling declined to offer further comment on the statement from the firm.

The county entered into the 20-year host community agreement with Republic in 2006, allowing the firm to construct the landfill within the county. The host community agreement called for annual payments of $500,000 to the county from Republic Services and a $2.5 million-dollar “liquidated damages fee if the company desires to terminate the host community agreement.”

With the $2.5-million termination fee having been paid, Giles said the county has stopped receiving the annual $500,000 agreed-to payments.

“I will point out that with the $2.5 million payment that came in, we also lost our revenue stream of $500,000 a year,” Giles said while giving a presentation on the county’s proposed fiscal year 2017-18 budget during the board’s regular meeting Tuesday night. “Because that came in in 2015, that $2.5 million came in but we’ve lost a million already.”