Censored Again? CRAI Poolbeg Incinerator Letter To Irish Times.

Did the Irish Times censor this letter?

The Irish Times publishes press releases written by incinerator promoters – disguised as journalism.

The once respected company seems to have a policy of not publishing informed letters which contest the Big Lies produced by DCC, and the honest truths published by honest law-breaker Covanta.  This places The Irish Times in the Sunday Times/Fox News camp.

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http://www.indymedia.ie/article/97089

Poolbeg anti incinerator campaign still very active

Monday June 28, 2010 22:15 by Frances Corr – CRAI

I and thousands of my neighbours in Ringsend, Irishtown and Sandymount have been objecting to the siting of this incinerator in our community for over 10 years.  We have never been complacent on the matter, we do not blog, although we have our own Internet site under the title of NODUBLININCINERATOR. Those who wish to keep up to date with our campaign can access the up to date info on the site.

Last Saturday the Opinion& Analysis section of Irish Times, Stephen Collins had a article which questioned whether John Gormley had a conflict of interest when it came to dealing with the issue of the Poolbeg incinerator.

I have replied to the ed, but as I doubt this letter will be printed I am adding it here. It appears that a lot of media will only print the outdated PR mantra that Dublin City Council continue to trot out.

Madam,

Your political analyst, Stephen Colline, is usually a fount of wisdom, so it is a pity that his article on the proposed Poolbeg Incinerator (Saturday 26th June) appears to be based solely on outdated and contested public relations material from Dublin City Council and its consultants.

Perhaps he would consider these now established facts about this flawed project:

1. If it is the duty of the local authorities in question to select the safest and most efficient waste disposal system, why have the many other better options now available not been considered?

2. While the DCC PR machine keeps stating that EU fines are starting to “clock up” in the hope that the statement will be accepted, has he investigated if it is true? He will be surprised.

3. The “commercial developers” would be hard put to succeed in a legal claim, given that they have just announced the dispersal of the funding raised for the project as a dividend and a share buy-back scheme. Was he made aware of this?

4. While the project has apparently received approval from the bodies mentioned, is he aware that the contract with Covanta was signed while the Bord Pleanala oral hearing was just starting, and long before a “decision” was promulgated? Does he realise that this was a full year before the EPA hearings took place? Predetermined outcomes?

5. Has he investigated what “preliminary work” was done for the Foreshore Licence? If he does he will find that this did not even reach the minimum survey standards needed, and that a further hearing could well be involved before the issuance of a licence.

6. Is he aware that the promoters have now acknowledged that the maximum capacity required for the Dublin Region is well below 300,000 tonnes per annum, and that the excess needed for viable operation would have to be imported from the whole of Ireland, so that the facility is grossly oversized? And that if waste were imported from outside the Dublin Region the terms of the planning application would be breached and legal action would be well founded? So the way is by no means clear for the project to proceed!

7. The European countries that he cites as examples are no longer building incinerators. Covanta have abandoned their venture in China. Why?

8. Has he not realised that the opposition to this proposed facility, oversized and probably overpriced, comes from a far wider constituency than Dublin South East, and that there are serious implications for the health of the community? DCC has never carried out a baseline health assessment, presumably so that future health effects cannot be proven against a benchmark to be their responsibility!

When Mr. Collins considers the foregoing he will, no doubt, realise that there are usually two sides to every argument. If he would like further information from CRAI we would be delighted to meet him.

Yours etc.
Frances Corr

CRAI has always said this is the wrong technology in the wrong place

Related Link: http://www.nodublinincinerator.webs.com/

Covanta Pollutes California Air & Then Sponsors Earth Day

In California, Covanta has ambushed Earth Day.  They call it ‘sponsoring’.  Not unlike Dublin City Council’s PR consultant RPS conveniently judging the “European Green Capital City”.

• Covanta and its Ogden-alias have been fined thousands of times for polluting the earth. 

In Ireland, Dublin City Council’s paid consultant RPS judges the European Green Capital City.  

• RPS has been paid up to thirty million Euro so far in ‘consultancy’ fees to promote waste-to-toxins incineration.  They cite European cities, omitting certain facts.

Here’s a video about Covanta trying to ambush an Earth Day event in California.  

Get the original video with text here:
http://rhhr.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/covanta-pollutes-our-air-then-sponsors-earth-day/

——-

RPS Director judges European Green Capital City Award.
Engineers Journal I Volume 62: Issue 8 October 2008 

Summary:

The article announces that P. J. Rudden, RPS director, will judge the European Green Capital City award in 2008. The city which has a consistent record of achieving high environmental standards and sustainable development will receive the award. Rudden will judge the waste production and management as well as water consumption and wastewater treatment in applicant cities.

When referencing Stockholm as “European Green Capital City” its omitted that RPS judged the “award”.  Then they cynically spin about alleged European examples to try to justify a huge waste-to-toxins incinerator in Dublin. 

Covanta’s incinerator in California’s Central Valley imports waste long distances from various counties like Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Mariposa, Merced, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Solano, Tuolumne, & Yolo & other states including Washington, Oregon, & Nevada.

COVANTA HITS THE PANIC BUTTON!

Copied From Burning Issues No 12.    Some text-formatting.

________

“BURNING ISSUES” No. 12

Posted by dublin incinerator on July 2, 2010.

http://nodublinincinerator.webs.com/apps/blog/show/4168597-burning-issues-no-12

An Occasional Newsletter of happenings that affect the Poolbeg Incinerator Project, comprising the personal opinions and experiences of Maurice Bryan, technical adviser to CRAI.

 

COVANTA HITS THE PANIC BUTTON!

During their recent analysts tele-conference Covanta promised to lobby hard in Ireland to overcome obstacles to building the oversized Poolbeg facility, and this week has seen the results, culminating in the demand of the U.S. Ambassador for a meeting with Minister Gormley to promote the project for fear damaging Ireland’s reputation! Strange, given that gross product from foreign firms is actually rising!

This does appear to be a last desperate throw of the dice for Covanta for some good news to stem the steady decline in their stock price. It is all the more strange given that this month they will distribute the funds that were borrowed to build the plant in a share buy-back programme and dividend distribution, as already reported. The firm has suffered reverses in Asia and the UK together with many labour and regulatory troubles in their homeland operations, and is obviously now seeking to avoid a second lapse into Chapter 11 protection from bankruptcy.

Leinster House rumour has it that those lobbying include a retired senior politician who has already used all his influence to ram the project down the throats of Dublin (and all Irish) people despite all the demonstrated hazards of the process, firstly resulting in a badly informed opinion piece in “The Paper of Record” that repeated many of the errors contained in the releases of the PR firm concerned, which have now become a tired mantra for the proponents. On the 1st July it featured strongly in RTE programming, again with the same correspondent showing his lack of proper research, and the subsequent listener responses showed how widely the proposed incinerator is the subject of objection and even derision.  Pat Kenny’s attempt to portray the opposition as “Dublin 4 nimbyism” certainly showed fundamental misunderstanding of the issues.

Perhaps the saddest aspect was to see a major political party abandon its long-declared and admired stance on a matter of principle in the search for short term advantage in the Minister’s constituency, a lapse that may eventually cost them electoral support across the country.

To list the misconceptions:

1. The Local Authorities have not “selected the safest and most efficient waste disposal system”.

2. The EU fines will not come into force for some time to come.

3. The “commercial developers” would be hard put to prove a legal claim given their recent actions.

4. The Bord Pleanala approval was an empty gesture, given that the contract had already been signed six months previously.

5. The EPA licence only stipulates limits to emissions and working practices. The facility might never be able to operate given the level of atmospheric pollution discovered in recent EPA tests, which seriously breach the old EU limits, never mind the new tighter ones that come into force this month.

6. The “preliminary work” done for the Foreshore Licence” was miserably inadequate.

7. The promoters have now acknowledged that almost half the refuse feedstock for the plant would have to come from outside the Dublin Region. Legal advice is that they will be open to challenge should they attempt this importation which breaches the planning permission.
8. Most European countries have ceased to build incinerators.

9. The serious potential for negative impacts on the health of Dubliners and further afield has not been properly considered, despite ever increasing scientific evidence of long term harm.

10. The bulk of the reputed 600 jobs would be only available during the relatively short construction period, and more than half of these would be filled by imported specialists in incineration technology. The permanent jobs (60 were quoted to Bord Pleanala) would also be largely for foreign specialists.

THE PROPOSED INCINERATOR IS STILL THE WRONG PROJECT IN THE WRONG PLACE!

SEE THE C.R.A.I. WEB SITE AT http://www.nodublinincinerator.webs.coml
Telephone me at 01-4931877 or Frances Corr at 087-7715825.
Next week – An interesting European view of the project to date !


__________________________________


http://nodublinincinerator.webs.com/apps/blog/show/4168597-burning-issues-no-12

Alleged Illegalities in Poolbeg Incinerator Process: Bribery & Incineration Issue for Poolbeg Incinerator.

An opinion on the Poolbeg Incinerator from Bulgaria.  Sure what do they know about hiding corruption says Bertie & Celia. Cheeky ex-commies, after all I did for them and the brickie jobs. 

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Copied with minor text edits from Blog Comment Posted to Indymedia.

Bribery and the Incineration Issue for Dublin

by Karel Yurian – Wed May 26, 2010 21:21

source: https://www.indymedia.ie/article/78759?&condense_comments=false#comment269054

Having seen the issues of bribery and embedded corruption seen as normal across many of the countries in the New European Union entrants and also seen the same things practiced elsewhere across the wider World I wonder about the rumours running rife that RPS will be given up to €26 million in extra fees-  above their already over-sized €21 million, going on €32 million fees being paid for by Dublin Corporation.  

 

The European Union has hierto not yet fully deliberated on the vexed procurement issues surrounding how Elsam and another became Dong and Covanta and that during the time of the current discussions (over the last three years) the Dublin Poolbeg Incineration project has leapt from €267 million yo €410 million (according to the American Press.) And that they are now seeking a currency price adjustment to be implemented to the project to guarantee that the Government of Ireland does not default on the tenets of the payment profile – the costs to treat the waste per year!

Surely Ladies and Gentlemen in Ireland you have not missed the issue for even from here in Bulgaria it stares you in the face.

• The Dublin Poolbeg Incinerator Project was tendered for correctly but awarded ILLEGALLY TO AN ORGANISATION THAT WAS NOT PARTY TO THE ORIGINAL BID.
  

• It is ILLEGAL to use the term PUT OR PAY for a Service like this when it is in effect a SUBSIDY.
  

• It is also ILLEGAL for this PUT OR PAY principal then to be used as a means to EXACT FURTHER SUBSIDIES IN LOWER THAN EXPECTED OUTPUTS IN ELECTRICITY AND HEAT which inevitably follows.

• It is ILLEGAL for the CONSULTING ENGINEERS RPS (FORMERLEY MC O’SULLIVANs) to have been awarded a contract to determine the PRE_ORDAINED OUT_COME AND NEED FOR THE DUBLIN INCINERATION PROJECT.
  

• It has always been ILLEGAL PRACTICE UNDER THE Services DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION TO CONTINUE WITH THE APPOINTMENT OF CONSULTING ENGINEERS ON A PROJECT WHEN THEIR FEES HAVE INCREASED (BE IT FROM ADDITIONAL WORK, OR FROM NEW WORKs) WHICH SO MATERIALLY INCREASE THE VALUE (OF THE ORIGINAL SERVICE CONTRACT) BY OVER 30%!
  DUBLIN CORPORATION IS IN ITS OFFICERS CULPABLE OF THIS MISMANAGEMENT AND NOW THE EU NEEDS TO STEP IN AND SERVE NOTICE OF REDRESS.
  

• In these items therefore the EU should also take note that the VARIOUS ACTS OF COERCIAN CURRENTLY BEING ADOPTED BY DUBLIN CORPORATION TO FORCE THE WASTE INDUSTRY TO SUPPLY ITS FREELY COLLECTED AND CONTRACTED WASTE OBLOGATIONS TO THE INCINERATION PLANT (SHOULD IT EVER GET BUILT) IS A MOVE AGAINST THE CONSTITUION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION IDENTIFIER ON TRADE AND IS A RESTICTIVE PRACTICE BANNED IN LAW UNDER BOTH EU AND IRISH STAUTES.
  

In the previous items I have just scanned it seems that the premise for taking the Waste to Ringsend-Poolbeg is flawed under the EIS EIA rules of the EU in that there has been no comparable study done to suggest that the waste could not have been transferred to the existing Land Fill Site by the Ring Road. If that had been done the concerns over the option for shipping waste through the most densely populated area of Dublin would have been eliminated in its entirety.

Likewise and I return to the issue of the day, Incineration does not do what it is supposed to do. Professor Michael H Hayes (at the University of Limerick) and Dr Daniel H Hayes (of the Carbolea Institute at the same University of Limerick) have both shown that the best option Environmentally is the conversion of the Biomass in the Waste to the Biofuel for Transport Ethanol – after separation of the Recyclables and the Inert materials (these last two are also not included within the incineration option.) This position has also been verified by Dr Dominic Hogg of Eunomia and now it seems many others including many in Denmark Sweden Norway and Finland as well as in the UK China Korea Vietnam and India – all of whom are adopting this system.

WHY? Simply put it solves the Environmental issues as well as being as much as 60% cheaper in Capital costs and in operations and maintenance costs.

Again earlier in these items we read that the Waste to Ethanol process can be effected at a treatment cost which can be set lower than Land Fill Costs — I think I read €30 per tonne was proposed for Dublin. Further I also read that there would be no treatment cost after 6 years from the start. Further it does not need the illegal subsidies of a Put or Pay base structure to survive!

Why then does the Government dilly dally with this? There is no contest.

Covanta’s Poolbeg Incinerator Investments & Bertie’s Money

Bertie,  Celia published some garbage on the July 4 weekend about the Poolbeg Incinerator.  So, is it true.  Are you the ‘senior politician’?

Jaysus would you ever feck off.

Bertie, is Biffo your patsy?

No.

Bertie, have you ever visited Bada Bing?

Feck off.  Dats de last time.  OK?  As esteemed Cllr Tormented of Fine Gael says, Mind how you walks de streets.

American Ambassador Interferes in Irelands Internal Democratic Process?

US Football Owner Sticks Nose into Poolbeg Incinerator Scheming.

Once upon a time a lawyer in Dublin, employed by Dublin City Council to promote the proposed Poolbeg Incinerator, had a fund-raiser for Mr Obama, in his Dublin house.

Once upon a time a millionaire from the US Republican party endorsed Obama.  He was rewarded with a cushy retirement job as Ambassador to the Republic Of Ireland.  The ambassador is the millionaire owner of a US football team.

Its reported he will now interfere in Ireland’s internal affairs by “requesting” a meeting with Ireland’s Environment Minister to put the case for a New Jersey law breaking corporation.  Lies concerning ’600 jobs’ have been placed in the Irish media by persons unknown.  Its unfortunate the Ambassador, totally outside his control, is implicated by the media.  Unless you read carefully it would appear the Ambassador is claiming 600 jobs will be lost.  The media also spins the absurd picture of sophisticated US investors, often funded from China, paying attention to the machinations of companies operating in the dodgy US waste industry.

The proposed operator of the proposed Poolbeg Incinerator has a record of breaking US laws.  Most US companies do not wish to be associated with such law breaking.  

Just before July The Fourth, an Irish newspaper published a scare headline.  It claims the US Ambassador wants to meet Ireland’s Environment Minister and also claims, without validation, that 600 jobs will be lost.

With another Irish Billionaire, the paper is dominated by Tony O’Reilly who traded in Pittsburg as CEO of Heinz Corporation, close to the Ambassador’s football stadium.  To celebrate O’Reilly’s lucrative remuneration Time Magazine ran a front page cover story on O’Reilly titled “All Gain, No Pain”. 

O’Reilly’s ‘newspaper’ now claims that 600 jobs will be lost if the massaged and possibly unlawfull effort by DCC is not proceeded with.  This ’600 jobs’ spiel looks like another barefaced lie straight from the cronies in The Galway Tent, but perhaps the newspaper is making a purely innocent typo.  The maximum number of jobs, chiefly low pay waste-sorting jobs, in an incinerator run by computers and robots is a max of sixty (60).  The number of jobs lost through displacement by the incinerator elsewhere is well in excess of 1,000.  Not counting the possible 300 per year who lose their jobs from premature bad health and premature death from added air pollution particles.  

To protect itself from future Irish lawsuits, including health liabilities from pollution, accidents and other financial risks the proposed operator has established a legally-firewalled company in Luxembourg.

Rooney (Centre) With Bush.

Big Tobacco Also Denied Any Health Harm.

PAID EXPERTS

The Big Lie

    1950s: Big Tobacco paid “experts” such as dentists & doctors to deny health harm from “modern” filtered cigarettes.

    2010: An “expert” denying health harm from “modern” filtered incineration has been paid by Dublin City Council.  

The promoters of the proposed Dublin Bay incinerator paid $US 33 million to insider’s companies “consulting” for DCC.  The paid “expert” director from the lead consulting company, an engineer and not a doctor, denied ANY health effect from “modern” Incinerators. 

~~~~~~~~~

Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Breath

YouTube Video on Proposed Covanta Incinerator in Vancouver

Click here for alternate link to this incinerator video.

westerneye — June 22, 2010 — Currently Metro Vancouver is considering a plan which would lead to over half a million tonnes of garbage being incinerated every year. This would be a major step backwards in sensible waste management.

To learn more about what’s going on in Vancouver and to voice your own opinion, visit http://ZeroWasteBC.org. This is your chance to speak now or forever hold your breath!

Why would Canadians be cynical about Covanta?

Expert Reports from Dublin City Council, Covanta, Repeated Propaganda & Spin (RPS) and Engineers Ireland only tell the whole and complete truth about Incineration. Unlike this evil YouTube video from Vancouver.

Engineers Ireland Leveraged by Incineration Industry?

April 1, 2010.

Engineers Ireland (EI) has in the past published a “report” strongly supporting incineration.

• Is it ethical that the publication does not appear to shout out that RPS’s Mr Rudden is a VP of Engineers Ireland?  

• Is it ethical that the publication does not highlight that RPS & others have been paid €25 million by an autocratic Dublin City Council to promote incineration at Poolbeg?

• Is it ethical that the Engineers Ireland publication does not appear to shout out that report authors are from the incineration industry?

Has Engineers Ireland now been placed alongside other Irish Institutions which some people are wary of?  Has the ordinary membership of EI been unduly leveraged by the waste-to-toxins industry?  Did anyone ask the members opinions before the report was published using their good names?  Is EI relevant outside Ireland, and outside the small world of Irish government contracts often managed from the Galway Tent?

From Engineers Ireland’s website:

A national voice     http://www.iei.ie/membership/benefits-of-membership/national-voice/

We aim to be the trusted and influential voice of engineering in Ireland, providing members with a forum to highlight and influence issues that matter to engineering, at a national level. By engaging with fellow members and supporting submissions to Government, your professional voice will be heard.

Government submissions

We speak for the engineering profession on all national policy issues by submitting many reports, articles, and presentations to Government and official bodies every year. Topics covered include infrastructure, energy, budgets, education and the overall development of the Irish economy.

var axel = Math.random()+”";var a = axel * 10000000000000;document.write(”);

Part of the EI report’s curious self-justifying rationale seems to be that the proposed Poolbeg waste-to-toxins incinerator will supply heat to housing, and who could argue with such a worthy goal for the suffering socialist masses. However in practice Dublin Council has apparently made a contract which will supply the public domain good to a socialised-billionaire-speculator’s offices. Mr Rudden has waffle and no numbers about waste-to-toxins energy in a totally biassed Irish Times article (April 1, 2010).

Is it ethical that the Engineers Ireland publication does not shout out the fact that report authors are from the incineration industry?

• Veolia.

• Ex-Indaver employee and ex EI President and ex-EPA-Ireland Director Burke.

Covanta has purchased Veolia North America.  Indaver is a Belgian incinerator operator with proposals to build a toxic incinerator in a flood-zone in Cork Harbour.  Toni Soprano’s waste business is not mentioned.

Was paid-to-promote-incineration Burke a past-president of EI, and if so why is this kept under the radar?

Engineers Ireland Code of Ethics

Engineers Ireland Code of Ethics outlines the standards and conduct that all Engineers Ireland members must adopt in their professional lives.

The Code includes this part:

• Relations with colleagues, clients, employers and society in general

  

Here is what Judge McKechnie said in an ‘unapproved’ judgement in December 2009/January 2010 on Dublin City Council’s Matt Twomey and his close work directing RPS ‘reports’ & for which RPS’s Mr Rudden seems to be the director:

“Massaging of reports by Matt Twomey, which were later, in their edited versions, released publicly, is a strong indicator to me of unacceptable influence in a process supposedly carried out in the public interest,”

McKechnie said in his ‘unapproved’ judgment. [Sunday Business Post]

Here is an example of paid ‘spin’ from Mr Rudden, VP Engineers Ireland, VP RPS and paid-incinerator-promoter:

“There is no credible evidence that modern incinerators impose any risk to health.”      PJ RUDDEN, Director, RPS Group, Ireland.  Irish Times, January 12, 2010

Look at that statement and compare it to Big Tobacco statements.

During a cynical DCC open-day in 2010, Covanta’s engineer was aparently unable to name even one modern Covanta incinerator – even though he previously claimed over a thirty minute period, apparently, they were all modern due to continuous improvement and an awesome R&D team.

DCC refuses to conduct base line health studies.  Pollution released into the air in USA by Covanta most definitely poses more than “any” risk to human health.  The engineers excuse was that mechanical systems will always have failures.  That confirms a real threat to health, especially with regulation standards as practiced in Ireland.

Does Mr Rudden’s statement match or exceed the ethics standards of Engineers Ireland?  Does the statement fully inform the public?  Is the statement true or false?  

_________________________

From EI Website:

Guidelines for making a complaint about the conduct of an Engineers Ireland member.

All members of Engineers Ireland must comply with our Code of Ethics. Members of the public who are dissatisfied with service received from a member of Engineers Ireland may make a formal complaint to the institution.   

How to make a formal complaint:   See EI website.

EI Council, 2009-2010 session.

The Council is regulated by the Engineers Ireland Bye-Laws and Code of Ethics.
Engineers Ireland Officers

• President: Dr Chris Horn, Chartered Engineer
• Vice President: Martin Lowery, Chartered Engineer
• Vice President: PJ Rudden, Chartered Engineer

_____________________

  

Mr Rudden & Corrib Gas Project

Since 2007 he is assisting the Corrib Partners in planning, routing, EIS and construction supervision of the modified Onshore Pipeline Route in Mayo including communications and stakeholder aspects.

Covanta

Covanta with an established dodgy record of repeated fines for breaking US pollution laws and has recently increased the money for “lobbying government”.  Covanta also legally hires “ex” government or ex-regulator officials.

 

Massaged Irish Media

The Irish Times seems to publish massaged press releases more or less directly from Dublin City Council/RPS, whilst ignoring or censoring competing and accurate viewpoints.  During the property boom the Irish Times was largely funded by property supplements.  Today it needs DCC adverts. 

Socialised Comunity Gain for Speculators

DCC has a contract to supply heat from Poolbeg to a socialised-speculator miles away in Dublin’s Docklands (the speculator possibly now hanging out in China has been inducted into the €80 billion national bankruptcy process and owns the NAMA treasury building; or perhaps vice versa).  Anglo’s planning department for Poolbeg, DDDA, is now disgraced.  The offshored-cabal directing our native politicians governed Anglo, DDDA, DCC, Dublin Port Company and other speculators in the Banama Republic of Poolbeg.  Poolbeg scams such as the closed IGB (glass bottle recycling factory) will cost taxpayers €1 billion to €2 billion.  This same faceless cabal is pulling strings for the incinerator – all behind closed doors and for curious reasons.

Harrisburg Incinerator Nearer to Bankruptcy – Covanta Contract.

Mutual Insurance: You hit us, we hit youse.  Are the bonds insured by Hamilton, Bermuda- based Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp.

Covanta has a real good feeling. 

____________________________________

Source: bloomberg.com

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Miss April Loan Payment

Share Business Exchange

By Dunstan McNichol

March 30 (Bloomberg) — Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the capital of the sixth-most-populous U.S. state, will miss an April 1 loan payment to Covanta Holding Corp., said Michael Casey, the city’s interim business manager. 

Harrisburg faces $68 million in debt service payments this year connected to a trash-to-energy incinerator that Fairfield, New Jersey-based Covanta operates. The payments on the $282 million in incinerator debt are about four times what the city of about 47,000 raises through property taxes, according to its budget. 

The city is scheduled to pay Covanta $637,500 April 1. The payment is the fifth installment on a $20.7 million Covanta advance the city guaranteed in 2008 on behalf of the incinerator’s manager, the Harrisburg Authority. Covanta runs or has an investment in 64 energy-generation facilities globally, including 45 like the Harrisburg plant that convert waste to energy, according to its 2009 annual report. 

“We have the cash, but we do not plan to pay them on the first of April,” Casey said in a phone interview today. “They are working with us on a forbearance program for the rest of the year,” meaning a plan to give the city some leeway on debt payments, he said. 

Casey said the city is talking with the authority, Dauphin County, a guarantor of some of the bonds, and Hamilton, Bermuda- based Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp., their insurer, on a plan to restructure the debt while the city draws up a recovery strategy.

Asset Sales 

That plan will include selling unspecified city assets, raising the county’s trash-dumping fees at the incinerator and refinancing a portion of a $34 million working capital loan that is scheduled to be paid in full in December, Casey said. Mayor Linda Thompson isn’t considering a bankruptcy filing, he said. 

“And frankly, we see no need of it, the way things are going,” he said.

Covanta is cooperating with the city and is awaiting its recovery measures, Jim Klecko, regional vice president for Covanta, said in a telephone interview today from his office in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 

“They have given us a real good feeling that they don’t expect to go into bankruptcy,” he said. 

In addition to the debt service, the city owes another $12 million in payments on eight series of bonds and notes of its own, according to budget documents. 

Thompson didn’t return messages seeking comment today. 

Missed Payments

Covanta, whose chairman is Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell, reported annual revenue of $1.55 billion in 2009.

The city has missed two payments on the incinerator debt this year.

On March 1 the authority tapped debt service reserves to cover $2 million in payments due on its Series 1998A and 2003 Series A, B and C bonds after Harrisburg failed to honor its guarantee, according to March 8 notices to bondholders. A $425,000 payment, for which there is no such reserve, is due May 1, according to a schedule prepared for the City Council by Cincinnati-based Management Partners Inc., which was hired by Pennsylvania to develop a recovery plan for the city. 

Dauphin County, where Harrisburg is located, has sued the city seeking $15 million, including reimbursement of $8.9 million in incinerator swap and debt service payments it has made on the city’s behalf since last year, according to the county’s legal complaint. 

City Controller Dan Miller, who has advocated seeking Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy protection instead of selling assets, said he doesn’t think the city has enough cash to make the Covanta payment along with $4 million in city bond payments and a $1 million payroll that are also due April 1.

“I think we’re going to have trouble making those payments, let alone the $600,000 to Covanta,” he said in a telephone interview from his office in Harrisburg today.

Harrisburg’s credit rating was slashed to five levels below investment grade in February by Moody’s Investors Service.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dunstan McNichol in Trenton, New Jersey, at dmcnichol@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 30, 2010 18:25 EDT