County's Deal on Waste to Energy Plant Suddenly 'In Jeopardy'

The deal that was, now isn’t.

The agreement Fairfax County officials thought it made last month with Covanta is now in jeopardy. During the closed session of the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, officials were presented with a term sheet that updated the status of the negotiations with Covanta, which owns and operates the plant. According to sources, the terms were different than what had been .

As a result, the supervisors voted unanimously to order county officials to immediately cease negotiations with Covanta and begin to explore “all options” in the county’s interest.

“We are back to square one,” Mount Vernon District Supervisor Gerry Hyland said. “We have to completely re-think our options.”

“We were blindsided,” said Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay. “I thought we had a deal and now we don’t.

The development is the latest turn in what has been an often contentious debate about whether the county should buy or lease the plant.

During the past several months there was a window open in the existing agreement between the county and Covanta that gave the county the option to buy the plant. The plant sits on county-owned property, but Covanta has owned, managed and staffed it since it opened.

In January, County Executive Anthony Griffin recommended that the county purchase the plant for an estimated $418 million. Subsequently, three sessions were held throughout the county to both inform the public as well as to gauge its response. It was during this time that the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce came out against the county’s intent to purchase and .

On March 29, the Board voted 8-2 to pass on the purchase option and instead to extend the lease agreement with Covanta. Hyland and Hunter Mill Supervisor Catherine Hudgins were the lone votes against.

In the weeks leading up to the vote, McKay was an  in a public forum. He believed the public discussion worked against the county and the sudden change on Tuesday is confirmation of that.

“I believe you lose some of your clout when you negotiate to the outside world,” he said. “This is a great example of that.”

Though he voted against the proposal to lease, Hyland was not gloating and characterized Covanta’s move as “outrageous.”

But the idea of starting over and the circumstances that brought it about gave Hyland hope that the county might consider the purchase option again. His vote against the lease was based in large part on his belief that Covanta will seek waste from outside the county in order to maintain production levels, which would boost truck traffic to and from the plant.

“If you have people who are thinking about landfilling, then I think that would be a major step backwards,” Hyland said.

In response to Tuesday’s events, Covanta issued the following statement to Lorton Patch:

“Covanta is ready to draft and sign a contract that is consistent with the term sheet previously agreed to. However, at this point we clearly have different ideas on how the term sheet would be converted to an amended service agreement. The parties simply need to complete their discussions, staying within the spirit of the agreed upon term sheet. We would like nothing more than to resolve these issues and resume what has been a long, positive and productive relationship between Fairfax County and Covanta.”