Candia News : recycling

Candia’s new recycling center hurt by economy

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:59:00 GMT

BY TOBY HENRY

Candia officials say the more than 20 large bailed stacks of soda cans, plastic bottles and newspapers at the new recycling center are a telltale sign of the nation’s economic woes.

“We’ve met with (recyclers), and the market is null and void right now,” said Solid Waste Committee member Amanda Soares. “A lot of this stuff was shipped overseas, and right now, the market is pretty much flat. We’re kind of hoarding some of the commodities until it goes back up.”

Officials hoped early on that the recycling center, which opened its doors less than six months ago, would boost the town’s recycling income to as much as $100,000 annually. In 2007, the town brought in slightly more than $60,000, and recycling center operator Chuck Whitcher and Soares both said the town had been getting a good price for its commodities until mid-autumn.

Soares said that before Thanksgiving, the town had already earned around $50,000, and the price for a ton of old newspapers peaked at $100. But shortly afterward, she said that same ton of newsprint was valued at a paltry 5 cents, and Whitcher said this crashing market value was prefaced by a nearrecord high only weeks earlier.

Today, the bottom floor of the recycling center has a temporary “wall” of crushed and bailed cans, cardboard and other commodities positioned up against the massive concrete containers that hold back tens of thousands of cans, bottles and plastic jugs.

At the recycling center’s second story, where residents throw their recyclables, the level of cans in some areas is almost as high as the concrete walls themselves.

“This has been going on for a few months now,” Whitcher said. “We’re just trying to stockpile everything. When we get to the point where we don’t have storage anymore here or in our trailers, we have to get rid of it.”

Whitcher said the town has already paid to get rid of one shipment of paper recently, but the invoice has not been received yet. While the impromptu stockpiling is a situation that officials never described in the lead-in to the center’s opening, the center itself is still clean and organized, and Whitcher said it makes a good visual impression on how much trash and recyclables are generated by the town of about 4,100 residents.

“And Candia is a pretty small town,” said Whitcher as he looked out over the growing pile of soda cans.

Whitcher said the recycled items are not winding up buried in landfills, and the “hoarding” is still a cheaper option to the town than burying trash. As of Jan. 29, Whitcher said one exterior storage trailer was three-quarters full while another was half-full, and the stockpile is not an obstacle for residents who stop by to get rid of their trash.

Fire Chief Rudy Cartier said the pile-up is becoming “a moderate concern” for himself and his department.

“A lot of things were taken out of the original design (for the center),” he said. “There’s no fire suppression system in there at all, and there’s also no cistern. But we at least have a fire alarm system in there, and there are a couple 30,000-gallon cisterns in the area.”

Candia recycling center bond forces tax spike as payment kicks in

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:19:00 GMT

BY TOBY HENRY

Old Candia Road resident Cheryl Carson is one of hundreds of local residents who received a property tax bill this month which is significantly higher than last year’s.

Carson, who appeared in person to pay tax collector Jane Sanders on Nov. 14, said the bill is “several hundred dollars more” than the last one she paid, and Sanders said the same situation is being faced by most of the other families in town. The tax rate is now $20.90 per $1,000 of assessed property value, an increase of $2.44 over the previous rate.

According to a breakdown of the cost on the town’s Web site, municipal taxes account for $4.40, while the school’s portion is $12.72. State tax comes to $2.69, with county tax at $1.09.

Officials questioned about the increase said the bond payment on the new recycling center was the main cause for the more than $2 boost on the tax rate. An amortization schedule for the center’s 10-year, $1.5 million bond states the 2008 payment due is $215,910, but Selectman Joe Duarte said the amount is slated to decrease each subsequent year.

In 2009, the amount due drops to $208,875 with $202,875 to be paid in 2010, and although the payment amount drops by between $5,000 to $7,000 annually, residents will not see the payments cease until the final payment of $152,250 in 2017.

Ingrid Byrd, a School Board member, said her major concern about the higher tax rate is the effect it will have on retirees and other residents who live on fixed incomes. With the addition of the recently announced 11-year-high on the national unemployment rate, Byrd said the coming months could prove to be a dire financial time for all residents.

“I’ve heard … from people whose tax went up $1,000, even $1,500,” Byrd said. “No matter where you look, people are hurting. I know of several people that had professional jobs, jobs that they worked at for 10, 15 years, and now they’re out of a job. It’s not just people in the middle income who are hurting. Now it’s people who you’d think were doing well.”

Recycling center operator Chuck Whitcher said while the center’s cost is heavy this year, the center will save the town money in the coming years. For the most part, said Whitcher, the more residents recycle, the more the town stands to make when it resells metal and other valuable commodities.

“In the long run ... we’ll be able to recycle more here, we can handle more vehicles quicker, and things are much more efficient,” he said. “Not only are we saving money, but in a lot of areas, we’ll be generating revenue.”

Ultimately, Duarte said he’s going to seek a stop-gap measure to help residents by proposing to obtain some money from the land-use change fees. Currently, 100 percent of the money -- estimated at about $100,000 annually -- is put into an account for the Conservation Commission to purchase land for open space preservation, but Duarte said he’d be willing to divert as much as 75 percent of the amount to the general fund to help residents weather the tough financial times.

Part of the issue, Duarte added, is that the lack of major business in town means Candia is forced to make almost all of its income from residential taxes. While taxes occasionally fluctuate downward depending on budget demands, Duarte said a better approach would have been to have an incremental increase each year to help prevent situations like this year’s “sticker shock.”

“What we should have been doing is increase the taxes a little each year, instead of surprising everybody like this with a $500 or $600 increase all at once,” he said.

Opening of new transfer station goes well

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:19:00 GMT

BY TOBY HENRY

The new recycling center on Deer Run Road opened its doors to scores of people the last weekend of August as local residents made their first drop-offs of bottles and paper that officials say could be a new money maker for the town.

“I think that because of the holiday weekend, it’s been a pretty smooth transition for our employees here,” said Solid Waste Committee Chairman Paul McHugh.

“There’s probably a lot of people away this weekend, but the people that have showed up are very receptive to recycling. Now, we’ve got to recycle everything -- but it’s money.”

McHugh was joined by fellow committee members Amanda Soares, Al Couch, selectmen Chairman Fred Kelley and others to help answer the public’s questions and to help ease the transition from the “town dump” and incinerator on New Boston Road to the new facility.

Most of Candia’s plastic will now be sorted, bailed and sold, and by Sunday afternoon, Aug. 31, many of the large concrete holding bins at the center already contained growing mountains of cans, paper and other recyclables.

The opening of the center came after nearly four years of discussion, work and public voting that included a failed vote for a much larger regional recycling center three years ago. Although officials said the Labor Day weekend had a relatively low resident turnout compared to a typical weekend at the now-closed incinerator, Soares said more than 150 people had dropped off trash by noontime on Sunday, and those who did come brought fairly significant amounts of recyclables with them.

“It’s my first time here, and it seems pretty efficient and wellorganized,” said Paul Partridge.

“I wasn’t really sure of what to expect, but there’s a nice flow of traffic ... and I think it‘s a good arrangement compared to what we had before.”

At the incinerator, residents used to wait for a place to park and then throw their metal and cans in various dumpsters set up around the crowded property. But at the new center, the layout is less congested, and drivers pull their vehicles up to a two-lane second-story area and simply drop their cardboard, paper, glass and other materials down into the bins.

The final stop on the way out is the large red compactor trailer, which McHugh said can hold up to 10 tons of regular household trash. While residents and committee members gave the new center high marks for its improved traffic flow, center operator Chuck Whitcher said some residents would occasionally get boxed in and have to wait for an exit until residents parked to the front, side or rear drop off their recyclables and leave.

“They’d have to wait a few minutes, and some people were bothered by it, but others were very patient and understanding,” Whitcher said.

The occasional odd item did not have an apparent drop-off location, and in one example, Soares held on to a worn-out dry ice pack for one resident and disposed of it later in a receptacle designed for objects containing chemicals. Additionally, officials said some similar items like common house light bulbs and fluorescent bulbs have to be disposed of in different ways.

While the regular light bulbs can be thrown out with regular trash, the fluorescent bulbs, which contain mercury, are put in a separate area to be recycled later on. Soares said the items that generated the most questions were kitty litter -- it now goes in with regular trash and not construction debris -- and Styrofoam, which also goes in the household trash compactor.

Residents questioned on Sunday morning said they were pleased with the new center, although a few expressed concern that the town had not sent out fliers beforehand to remind them to sort out their plastic, particularly the ubiquitous clear plastic water bottles. Paul Gagnon was one of several to say that an informative newsletter mailing would have been a good reminder for residents to begin sorting out their plastic, and McHugh said an extensive multi-page hand-out will be made available soon.

During opening weekend, information was available at the center in the form of a flier, and most residents questioned said they were able to figure out what to do without much of a problem. Walter Ingaharro said there will probably be a learning curve as he and other residents learn how to best use the two parking lanes as they access the concrete bins.

“Oh, give me a couple weeks,” he said. “I think that for right now, a lot of people are going to be confused about the parking.”

Transfer station costs escalate

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 23 May 2007 21:43:00 GMT

BY NICHOLAS BROWN

Candia officials are regrouping after bids for the town’s new recycling and transfer station came in about $800,000 higher than they’d hoped for.

Voters last year approved $1.5 million for the new transfer station, slated for a town-owned property off Deer Run Road, just off Route 27.

The station will replace the current incinerator, which is likely not to qualify for a new burning permit once more stringent emissions standards, sent down from the federal Environmental Agency, take effect in November 2008.

“That’s the deadline we really can’t miss,” said Selectman Tom Giffen.

After buying the land and some other fees, the town is down to about $1.2 million of the original $1.5 million bond, and bids for the project from multiple firms came in at about $2 million, with the lowest bid being $1.8 million.

Ledge on the Deer Run Road property is the main culprit for the high bids, which came in about a month ago, Giffen said.

“The cost estimates were off mainly for that reason,” he said.

Giffen said he and other town and transfer station officials plan to rework the plan’s general qualifications, and thereafter will seek lower bids