The Mid-Connecticut Project provides trash and bulky-waste disposal, along with recycling of curbside recyclables and electronics, to 70 cities and towns. The Project also operates, monitors and maintains landfills and electric generating facilities, one of which produces renewable power from landfill gas.

All CRRA’s operations are self-funded – CRRA receives nothing from the state general fund. CRRA uses private contractors to operate its facilities as required by state statute.

Revenues

As the pie chart shows, Mid-Connecticut Project revenue comes from three sources:

• Trash disposal fees paid by municipalities and private haulers.
• Electricity – CRRA sells power generated by the trash-to-energy plant and four jet-turbine generators available to meet peak power demands.
• Sale of recyclables sorted at the Project recycling facility and metals pulled from ash produced at the trash-to-energy plant.

CRRA supplements these revenues with reserve funds – essentially savings accounts dedicated for special purposes such as major capital projects – and surpluses from previous years.

Expenditures

As the pie chart shows, Mid-Connecticut Project expenditures fall into the following categories:

• Operations and maintenance of facilities includes contractors’ charges, salaries, parts, supplies, fuel and other items necessary to operate and maintain the
  • Waste Processing Facility (which turns trash into fuel),
  • Power Block Facility (which burns the fuel to create steam),
  • Energy Generating Facility (which uses the steam to spin turbines to generate power) and the
  • Recycling processing center, where recyclables collected at curbside or drop-off areas are sorted, processed and shipped to companies that turn them into new products.
  • Operational expenses include insurance, auditing, capital reserves, legal costs and direct labor expenses.
• Waste transportation and transfer stations – the Project has four regional transfer stations where trash and recyclables are aggregated for shipping to Hartford or other facilities depending on waste flows. The Project also pays to truck non-processible waste and ash to privately-owned landfills for disposal.
• Taxes and PILOTs include Payments in Lieu of Taxes, host-community payments, municipal subsidies and assessments paid to the state.
• Debt service includes interest and principal on Project bonds.
• Administrative expenses include office space lease, salaries, supplies, postage, legal fees, temporary labor, communications and other items.

You can download a copy of the FY 2011 Mid-Connecticut Project budget.

Historical Perspective

CRRA has been working to keep disposal fees stable, and the proof of its success is a comparison to inflation. The FY 2004 Mid-Connecticut Project disposal fee was $70 per ton. The chart below shows what the disposal fee would have been had it merely tracked inflation for the last six year compared to the actual disposal fees over that time.

The Mid-Connecticut Project disposal fee in FY 2011 will actually be one dollar lower than its 2004 disposal fee. Further, thanks to two mid-year disposal fee cuts in January 2008 and January 2009, the average over that time is even more attractive.

And, during that time, CRRA has returned more than $40 million in cash and credits to Mid-Connecticut Project towns.