Project Benefits

1.        Good paying jobs will be created:

1. The operation will require equipment operators, truck drivers, scale operators, accounting personnel, etc.
2. Pioneer Valley Railroad will service the facility which will create additional jobs locally.

2.       Estimated Financial Benefits for the City of Holyoke:

1. Real estate taxes paid annually on a multi million dollar facility.
2. The potential to generate a finacial package of approximately $300,000.  This is in addition to all the other recurring real estate taxes and other financial benefits.
3. The City could reduce the operating cost of the City’s curbside pick up program by disposing at a local facility and traveling less distance.
4. Residents, contractors and businesses may be able to reduce their disposal costs.  A substantial cost component for hauling waste is transportation expense.  Traveling less distance to a local Holyoke facility can reduce transportation expense.
5. The facility will purchase supplies and services from local Holyoke businesses.

3.       Significant Environmental Benefits:

1. Recyclable material can be shipped to markets for reuse and recycling as opposed to incinerating or landfilling.  A substantial quantity of construction materials such as metal, wood, brick, concrete and other materials will be sent to “off-site” processing facilities for recycling as opposed to landfilling.
2. Residents will have a place to dispose of bulky items (couches,     mattresses, etc.). This creates convenience and decreases illegal dumping throughout the City.
3. Reduced air pollution, green house gases and energy consumption by reducing truck transportation of wastes.

4.       Benefits of Rail:

1. The facility has been designed to incorporate rail service to provide efficient, affordable transfer to larger out-of-state landfills. With ever increasing fuel costs, rail offers a cost effective option to trucking.  Locally collected waste will be consolidated for shipment either by rail or truck reducing transportation costs and opening up the option of using multiple disposal facilities with lower disposal costs. This facility will be able to pass through savings to the City, local residents and businesses.
2. The amount of waste being generated in the US has been steadily increasing over the last 20 years.  Waste generated in the United States increased from approximately 293 million tons in 1990 to 483 million tons in 2002. Historically, waste transportation and disposal has been a local business in which waste has been transported primarily by trucks from generation points to landfills or incinerators relatively close by. While the volume of waste generated continues to grow, nearby disposal options are reaching, or have reached, full capacity with diminishing opportunities for new facilities. The result is that an enormous waste market, concentrated in the Northeast, must depend on a highly fragmented, increasingly regulated and ever more costly trucking system to move waste longer distances.
3. Given the relative lack of newly permitted local landfill capacity, and the exorbitant costs and resulting pollution associated with incineration, the solid waste management industry has trended towards the construction of larger, regional (national regions) solid waste “mega-fills.”  Many of these larger out-of-state landfills are made accessible by rail to accept waste from a larger region.  This facility is being designed to follow that trend, and offer the Holyoke region access to these disposal markets. The City of Holyoke will be one of the few communities that will not be reliant on diminishing local options. Many of the Midwest options will be available to the City of Holyoke and every Holyoke constituent. More options and competition can create savings. While other communities will be scrambling to find local disposal options Holyoke will have significantly more options.

5.       Improve a Distressed Property:

1. The new state of the art facility with landscaped grounds will upgrade an ugly and distressed vacant property. The project will turn an under utilized and distressed property into a productive location that creates revenue, jobs, services and other benefits. Please see property illustrations.

6.       Privately Financed:

1. The facility will be privately financed on privately owned property. The City of Holyoke will realize all of the substantial benefits that have been outlined with out having to expend capital for such a facility.