SMETHPORT – After an all day negotiating session Tuesday, the
City of Bradford and Bradford Township agreed to drop their suits
against the McKean County Solid Waste Authority.

In return, the authority will pay back some of the money the
municipalities have paid the landfill over the past 2 1/2 years,
and discontinue its legal actions against the municipalities.

With McKean County President Judge John Cleland mediating,
attorneys for the interested parties haggled over details of the
agreement throughout most of the day, with lawyers for the
authority coming out of the small courtroom occasionally to report
to the four authority board members present.

Bradford City Council and the Bradford Township Supervisors
separately began the day with an advertised official meeting, then
adjourned to a closed executive session so they were included in
the discussions.

The agreement provides for the authority to pay the city
$189,925 and the township $77,575, apparently as a refund of part
of the $86 a ton tipping fee the municipalities paid beginning in
January of 2003.

The municipalities had balked at that increase and started to
take their trash to a New York site, but were ordered to come back
to the county landfill by Cleland in February 2003.

The basis of that order was a county “Waste Flow Control
Ordinance,” which mandated that all waste generated in the county
be disposed of at the county landfill.

While the municipalities called the ordinance unconstitutional,
the court did not rule upon that issue, and the ordinance remains
in effect.

The agreement reached Tuesday specifically notes that the
ordinance is still in effect, and that the authority’s rights under
the ordinance remain intact.

Exactly what that means now that the landfill is owned by a
private company was unclear Tuesday evening, but the agreement also
stipulates that the February 2003 injunction will remain in effect
until certain other papers are filed, probably next week.

While the municipalities, having advertised regular meetings,
were able to ratify the agreement before leaving the courthouse,
the authority’s formal approval cannot come until a special meeting
next week.

The municipalities, in return for the cash payments, agree to
release the authority and its agents from all claims, and charges
from including claims that “were raised or could have been raised …
relating to MCSWA’s sale of the landfill and the proceeds of that
sale.”

Participants in the negotiations declined to further discuss the
agreement Tuesday, saying it spoke for itself. It is unclear if the
cash payments might leave the authority open to claims for refunds
from other municipalities.

And while the Flow Control Ordinance remains in effect, the
latest version of the county’s Municipal Waste Management Plan,
which is now in the final stages of approval, does not call for
such an ordinance, and allows haulers freedom to choose from a
number of landfills in Pennsylvania and New York.