The Tenterfield Shire Council’s push for a feasibility study into Waste-to-Energy (W2E) options for smaller NSW councils has received a major boost with NSW Country Mayors Association chair Katrina Humphries writing to all members urging them to support the study financially.
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“We’re certainly heading in the right direction,” according TSC chief executive Terry Dodds, who is the driving force behind the initiative with help from Moree Plains Shire Council and Regional Development Australia – Northern Inland.
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Country mayors have so far supported the effort to find a solution to their waste woes, but now they are being asked to back up that support with cash.
TSC along with the wider New England Joint Organisation (which includes Moree Plains, Armidale Regional, Glen Innes Severn, Inverell, Uralla and Narrabri councils along with Tenterfield) have already undertaken preliminary research into W2E options at a local scale, receiving unanimous support after Mr Dodds presented their findings at the association’s August meeting.
A W2E forum for Country Mayors members hosted by the Department of Premier and Cabinet on November 1 involved a number of industry experts and furthered that optimism.
“We believe that this technology provides a real opportunity for our councils to deal with the issue of waste in a more cost-effective manner,” Councillor Humphreys said in the letter to her colleagues.
“In order to progress this matter further, financial assistance is being requested to enable the completion of a comprehensive feasibility study to determine whether a pilot plant being built at this time is warranted.”
The aim of the study will be to determine what is the smallest scale at which economic W2E projects can occur.
The feasibility study is expected to cost $540,000, and Mr Dodds is ambitiously setting a six-month timeframe from the clock ticking from the time that funding is confirmed. He’s aiming for the councils to fund the study in its entirety, thereby giving them full control.
The findings will be owned and available for use by all contributing councils.
Each council is being asked for $15,000, although high contributions won’t be knocked back. As most councils will need to consider a motion to make changes to their annual operational plan to allocate the money – and the deadline for November council meetings will have been missed in many cases – Mr Dodds knows it will be next year before he has a outcome on the funding.
“By February next year I should know,” he said.