State Landfill Cutting Costs, Plans Expansion

State Landfill Cutting Costs, Plans Expansion

The state landfill says it would use any money it wins in a series of recently filed lawsuits to fund an expansion and upgrade of its facilities.

The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, which oversees the landfill, has filed a battery of lawsuits in an attempt to recover some of the estimated $75 million that a state audit says was wasted through mismanagement and widespread wrongdoing at the agency. If the court awards damages, it would be up to Resource Recovery to decide what to do with the money, according to its attorney, Thomas Holt.

Michael O’Connell, the executive director of Resource Recovery, told GoLocalProv the agency would prefer to use the money to expand and upgrade its facility. He said the landfill could use the money to fund the sixth phase of its expansion, upgrade its sewer system, and remove nitrogen, ammonia, and other chemicals from its soil. He didn’t have exact estimates for those projects but said Resource Recovery has a total capital budget of $20 million for this year as well as next year.

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But because Resource Recovery is a semi-public agency, O’Connell said the General Assembly could direct the funds to another purpose. “We’re going to take the money and we’d have to make the case to keep it,” O’Connell told GoLocalProv.

Lawsuits Aim to Recover More than $50M

Those faced with a lawsuit include two auditors, a money management firm, landowners who sold their properties to Resource Recovery, and a developer who built a tipping facility at the landfill. The suits against the auditors and money manager seek an unspecified amount of damages. The one against the Travelers insurance company seeks $16.6 million to $24 million under an insurance policy that covers employee theft. The suit against the developer and the landowners seek to recover roughly $35 million total.

O’Connell said the mismanagement and wrongdoing uncovered at the landfill would affect taxpayers over the long term. To sustain the higher costs, the former staff and board of commissioners had to generate more revenue by taking in more waste, according to O’Connell. That decreased the amount of available space, shortening the lift of the landfill. He said the hit to the taxpayers would come when the state has to construct a new landfill or expand the one it has.

Landfill Has Cleaned Up Its Finances

O’Connell said the goal of the agency now is to reduce the amount of waste it takes in—keeping it open longer and therefore postponing the costs of a new facility or an expansion. “For us, we’re like a top-down corporation,” O’Connell said. “We want to get smaller.”

Resource Recovery was once taking 1.2 million tons of waste a year, but has now cut that down to about 700,000 tons, according to O’Connell. Since he became executive director in 2007, he said the agency has trimmed its operational costs—which dropped from $67 million in 2008 to $43 million in the current year.