Baltimore County works to extend Wheelabrator contract

A proposal for Baltimore County to extend its contract to send trash to The Baltimore Refuse Energy Systems Company (BRESCO) incinerator for an additional six years is expected to be voted upon by the County Council Nov. 2, reports the Baltimore Brew.

Opponents of the South Baltimore facility, which is Baltimore City’s biggest source of industrial air pollution, denounced the move by County Executive Johnny A. Oleszewski Jr.

“This is very surprising and very unfortunate. They are locking the county in to contributing to the $55 million in health damages that BRESCO causes in the city every year,” said Greg Sawtell, a leader of the South Baltimore Community Land Trust.

According to the Baltimore Brew, both the city and county have contracts with BRESCO’s operator, Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., that are set to expire next year.

Mayor Bernard C. Young and his administration are offering to settle litigation with Wheelabrator by extending Baltimore’s contract for another 10 years. Meanwhile, the Olszewski administration if offering to extend its relationship with Wheelabrator through Sept. 30, 2026.

If approved, the county’s existing BRESCO contract would be terminated and a new contract, retroactive to October 1, 2020, would take effect.

Under the terms of the proposed contract, Baltimore County will deliver at least 215,000 tons of waste each year to BRESCO for six years and pay fees totaling $58.8 million, according to a memo from the county law department.

Like the current contract, however, the Baltimore Brew reports this is a so-called “put-or-pay” contract, meaning the county is obligated to pay a set amount no matter how much waste is sent to the plant.

The put-or-pay clause in the current contract is at the heart of the $32 million lawsuit that Wheelabrator filed against Baltimore County last year. The company accused the county of breach of contract for failing to send an annual minimum amount of trash to the facility.

Baltimore County and Baltimore City are BRESCO’s two biggest customers. The city sent just over 422,000 tons of material to the incinerator in 2019, according to data on file with the state.

By contrast, Baltimore County had been moving away from using BRESCO.

Its contribution to the incinerator dropped from 149,187 tons in 2018 to just 2,223 tons between January and April 2019.