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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Ind. Law - Still more on: "The politics of trash" in Lake County

Updating this ILB entry from yesterday, Marc Chase and Christine Kraly of the NWI Times today have a third long story, this one titled "Vetting the Lake County trash bidders." It begins:

Lake County waste management leaders tout the level of scrutiny incorporated into analyzing bids to consolidate county trash disposal, but one former board member said the agency failed in its responsibility to taxpayers.

After a year of vetting three trash processing companies -- with the help of an out-of-state engineering firm, a financial consultant and a multistate law firm -- the Lake County Solid Waste Management District inked a public-private contract with Powers Energy One of Indiana LLC in November 2008. The company plans to use a commercially unproven method of converting organic trash into ethanol, consolidating all of the county's trash disposal.

But not all district board members voted in favor of the deal. Hamilton Carmouche, a region attorney and one of Gary's three district board members at the time of the vote, said he believed the county failed to cast a wide enough net for potential bidders for the eventual 20-year contract -- particularly given that trash-to-ethanol processing currently exists only in laboratory and pilot plant settings.

Proponents of the Powers contract contend all players who would have come to the table in response to the county's calls for trash consolidation bids participated in the process.

But the district board opted -- early in the bid-vetting process -- to disregard at least two interested companies. And the district advertised for the bids through local media, not nationally.

District Executive Director Jeff Langbehn believes the agency found the bidder with the best, most innovative technology at the right price. And he said he is not concerned about past liens and a bankruptcy associated with the owner of the company that won the contract.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 14, 2010 09:51 AM
Posted to Indiana Government | Indiana Law