New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who last year negotiated money-saving changes to the city's contracts with three trash-collection companies, this week concluded a cost-saving revision to the contract with the landfill where the trash is dumped. Owners of the River Birch Landfill, where the city dumps its refuse under a 20-year agreement signed in 2000 by then-Mayor Marc Morial,...
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who last year negotiated money-saving changes to the city's contracts with three trash-collection companies, this week concluded a cost-saving revision to the contract with the landfill where the trash is dumped.
Owners of the River Birch Landfill, where the city dumps its refuse under a 20-year agreement signed in 2000 by then-Mayor Marc Morial, agreed to a 15-percent reduction in the rate the city has been paying, bringing the cost down from $34.25 per ton to $29.11 per ton, starting July 1.
The company also agreed to return to the city control of the Florida Avenue Transfer Station, where private haulers can dump construction or commercial waste.
"With this new 15-percent reduction on our disposal contract, Mayor Landrieu has now successfully renegotiated the city's four major sanitation contracts in just over one year in addition to adding weekly curbside recycling for most New Orleans neighborhoods," mayoral spokesman Ryan Berni said.
The three companies that pick up the trash at most homes and businesses -- Metro Disposal, Richard's Disposal and SDT Waste & Debris Services -- agreed last year to reduce their bills to the city by between 12 percent and 25 percent per household after Landrieu threatened to cancel the contracts and seek new bids.
Metro and Richard's also agreed to add weekly curbside pickup of recyclable materials. Curbside recycling, suspended throughout the city after Hurricane Katrina, has not resumed in the Central Business District and French Quarter, where SDT has the contract to pick up trash.
The city's 2011 budget includes $5.5 million for the River Birch contract.Berni said the city will spend less than that this year but did not give a figure.
River Birch and the adjacent Highway 90 Landfill in Waggaman are owned by Fred Heebe and his stepfather, Jim Ward.
Henry Mouton, a former state Wildlife and Fisheries commissioner, admitted June 1 in federal court that he took $463,970 from the owner of a landfill company and, in turn, used his official position after Katrina to lobby against operations at two other dumps. Prosecutors have not identified the landfill owner who paid off Mouton, and court records mention only "co-conspirator A." But other public documents suggest it is either Heebe or Ward. Neither has been charged with a crime.
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Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.