Panel: Oyster Bay should keep trash hauler

Two years and nearly $2 million later, Oyster Bay's waste management plan is back where it started.

A town task force, which worked since February 2009 reviewing firms for the next 10 years of transfer, haul and disposal -- is recommending the same company that now holds the contract.

The town board will soon consider a new $100-million pact (five years, with a five-year town option) with Winters MSW Holdings LLC. The Westbury firm also handles municipal trash disposal in North Hempstead and Glen Cove.

"They have substantial resources," said Hal Mayer, Oyster Bay's environmental consultant to the supervisor. "They have the physical stock and experience we can rely on for 10 years."

The town task force was formed in 2007 to assess long-term solid waste management. Since then, it has spent $1.9 million -- the bulk in the two-year process to award the new contract.

The last 10-year trash pact expired in February 2010 and has been renewed on a short-term basis while the task force worked. Winters took that contract over in 2007 from the previous operator, Waste Management Disposal Services Inc.

"Every day, we've got 100,000 homes that are putting trash out at the curb we have to pick up," Mayer said of the issue's importance. "It has to go somewhere."

In 2010, Oyster Bay processed 120,000 tons of non-recyclable solid waste at its Old Bethpage transfer station. Winters trucks the waste from there to its local facilities and ultimately to a landfill off Long Island.

One competing firm said the town ignored environmentally safer rail transfer. Joe Rutigliano of Coastal Distribution said long-haul trucks pose a higher safety risk and leave more of a carbon footprint.

"What's the financial cost of the status quo?" he asked at a recent town board meeting."Basically, the town is in the same position it was 30 years ago taking out the trash."

But Mayer defended the process, required by law when choosing a contractor not solely based on low bid. While rail transfer may offer a "theoretical" environmental advantage, he said it would still require the trash to be trucked from Old Bethpage and reloaded before it reached the rail.

"That theoretical advantage is greatly diminished when you have to handle it twice, leaving the possibility of additional breakdown," Mayer said. "In this case," the Winters contract "is more direct."