Natural gas switch leads to surprise costs
♦ The anticipated loss of income from mulch purchases by International Paper is causing a businessman to stop providing free mulching services.
News of International Paper transitioning to natural gas in the near future — eliminating the need for mulch to fuel its boilers — has at least one Georgia businessman looking at his options.
Rome Public Works Director Chris Jenkins informed the Solid Waste Commission during its bimonthly meeting Tuesday that Richard Reece of Southeast Grinding Inc. has approached him about now wanting to charge public works for grinding up stumps and tree limbs at Walker Mountain Landfill.
“He normally never charged us anything,” Jenkins said, explaining International Paper paid him for the mulch produced from grinding the trees to keep its boilers idling.
“It’s been a good partnership with them, but they came to us about a month ago and are now asking for money to grind, plus the gas for the equipment and they still want the material.”
Jenkins said Southeast Grinding would process about 3,500 tons of tree debris every six months and he’s asking for $7 per ton and $2 per ton for gas. It would cost more than $70,000 per year for the service that up to this point had been at no cost. “If somebody wants to get paid all of a sudden that changes everything,” City Manager Sammy Rich said during the meeting. Jenkins said Reece told him the price was “negotiable,” but that he informed Reece that anything over $ 10,000 has to be put out for public bid. County Manager Jamie Mccord told the commission that prior to about 2007, the county paid “several hundred thousand a year” for the grinding through a bid process. In a Jan. 10 social media post by the Jasper- based company, it was selling mulch for $12.50 per yard. “There aren’t a whole lot of places out there that do grinding,” Mccord said. Rich said a lot of residents have come to rely on being able to bring their tree debris to the landfill, so it would be difficult to end that service now.