Halesite – Supervisor Chad A.
Lupinacci has announced the success of a revenue-producing measure that has
reduced the volume of liquid waste delivered to and disposed of at the Town’s
Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) on Creek Road while taking taxpayers off the hook
for the costs to run the facility.
“While the STP facility intends to
provide a service to local liquid waste haulers, over the past ten years the
Town had been inadvertently encouraging haulers to deliver liquid waste from
distant locations to our facility due to the significantly underpriced disposal
fee,” said Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci. “We have now corrected that issue,
reducing the burden on our facilities and our taxpayers, who are no longer
footing the bill to operate the facility.”
The Town Board enacted a
revenue-producing measure, sponsored by Supervisor Lupinacci, to cover the
increased costs of operating the Huntington Sewage Treatment Plant (STP)
Scavenger Waste Facility. The fee for the disposal of liquid waste at the
facility was increased from the longtime fee of $62 per thousand gallons,
enacted in July 2009, to $79 per thousand gallons to cover a 19.11% increase in
operating expenses occurring over the past 10 years. With the fee increase, the
Huntington plant still remains the lowest-priced high-volume liquid waste
disposal facility in the area by 6%.
Revenue from the liquid scavenger
waste disposal fee is the sole source of funding for the STP facility’s
operating budget. The fee increase was expected to grow revenues by at least
$285,000 annually, even assuming a 20% decline in incoming scavenger waste
volume, opening up overall capacity at the facility, an intended effect of the
initiative.
Since its implementation on August 6
and through the end of the 2018 year, revenues increased approximately 21%, or
$113,000, with a corresponding 5.9% drop in volume for the 5-month period. With
the heaviest volume months occurring between March and August, the Department
of Environmental Waste Management expects annualized revenue to increase by
approximately $300,000 while the intake of scavenger waste coming into the
facility is expected to drop approximately 1.25 million gallons per year.
Scavenger waste represents about 4%
of the total gallons flowing through the STP on an annual basis. The STP
processes approximately 700 million gallons of liquid waste annually. The fee
increase has provided revenue for the STP to continue to upgrade its scavenger
waste facility and replace aging equipment while reducing the burden on the
facility.
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