Federal receiver Gerschman, Brickner & Bratton presented their objectives to local media today as they were tapped by a federal judge to take over the island's solid waste issues. While a plan of action isn't expected for a few months, the firm is optimistic they can get the job done.


Saying it's too early to give specifics on when the Ordot Dump will be closed and the new landfill opened, GBB believes in time they'll do the work right. President Harvey Gershman says during their tour of the island's four transfer stations, the dump, and the Layon site on Thursday, they've seen a number of problems. After noting the need to expand the transfer stations and putting a stop to burying recyclables to cleaning up the solid waste finances and repairing equipment, Gershman said, "We've got 99 people ready to work and they don't have equipment cause it's not working, so equipment has to be rented at a higher cost and other people come with that, so they're not able to do their job. So that's a problem. That's a lot of extra cost we need to get out of the system."


Gershman says meeting the mandates of the Ordot consent decree and closing the dump are major priorities for the firm but he stresses that Mother Nature will have a huge impact on the deadlines. This isn't something that can happen fast but we've got to establish a schedule once we have the final things organized. Special principal associate David Manning says the firm is also looking to implement a supplemental environment project; specifically, a household hazardous waste project.


At this point, he projects, it's too early to say when all of this will be done and how much it's going to cost. Said Manning. "No, we don't have an estimate that we have made. There will be estimates that we will make as we complete our initial planning and submit that back to the court."


He added, "Let me just say this, they've had 22 years and they haven't done the job. They haven't done the job for a lot of reasons, but we haven't been here long enough to make an independent judgment yet about what the timeframes are and what they should be. I think it's fair to say we will move as quickly as possible to do both of those things, all of things associated with the consent decree."


As for how they intend to finance what has been projected in the past to exceed $100 million, Gershman speculated, "The financial house of the solid waste system has to be put into order. We have to have a reasonable fee structure, what's there may be reasonable, or it may need some adjustment we just simply can't say at this point, but we also have to ensure that people are getting a service and people are also paying for that service in a way in which the government here has provided for them to pay for that service."


Once that's been established, GBB is confident they can work through the process and establish a revenue bond or interim financing opportunities with the ultimate goal to get a sustainable system at a reasonable cost. "If possible having some sort public ownership structure can result in a lower cost of financing, and you end up owning the asset. The key will be who operates the asset and makes sure its run properly and at the end of the financing life, the facility still has a life and can be used and the cost is lower at that point," added Manning.