CRCOG Solid Waste Management

General Information

In June 2008, CRCOG first communicated with the 70 Mid-Connecticut Project towns about regional solutions to solid waste management. With the Mid-Connecticut Solid Waste agreements with CRRA set to expire in 2012, CRCOG believes the 70 participating Mid-Conn municipalities may be able to achieve significant cost savings and other benefits by working together to forge a new regional approach to solid waste management. CRCOG’s research informed the decision of 48 municipalities to establish a new regional solid waste authority, the Central Connecticut Solid Waste Authority.

There are three principles at work in the new solid waste authority that is meant to be an improvement over the current conditions towns are disposing their waste under: (1) Transparency, (2) Accountability, and the (3) Prospect of Savings. Each municipality that joins this new regional authority will have its own reasoning as to why they want to join, not limited to those three areas.

The end goal is a comprehensive solid waste management solution for all members of the Central Connecticut Solid Waste Authority that has these principles. Although the solution will not be one-size-fits-all, we are confident we can provide full solid waste management service that is reliable, flexible and with predictable costs.

Transparency
- Governing Structure
  - Executive Committee elected directly by the membership at-large and is responsible for management of the authority, including determining staffing and overhead.
  - Executive Committee members are Chief Elected Officials or their designees.
- Formed under Chapter 103b (Sections 7-273aa to 7-273pp) as a Regional Resource Recovery Authority
  - Chapter 103b will give the new authority the widest scope of potential powers (not all of which it may want to exercise) combined with a minimum amount of initial organizational burden and complete flexibility in establishing a governing board
  - No changes to legislation is necessary to establish the authority

Accountability

Current group consensus is that the Executive Committee would be elected by the general membership on a tiered and geographic representation. The following is a breakdown of the nine Executive Committee seats that would be established through by-laws created by the membership:

5 Tiered Voting Categories, One Representative from Each Category:

% Population	Votes per Town
0-1	1
1-2	2
2-5	3
5-10	4
10+	5

Four (4) Regional Representatives: North West Region, Naugatuck Valley Region, Greater Capitol Region, Shoreline Region (Regional Map)

Prospect of Savings

By joining together, the participating municipalities can conduct a competitive process to find solid waste management services with vendor bargaining power well beyond their individual ability and economies of scale with all costs associated with conducting a solicitation.