Based on OPA’s estimates, the total cost of consent decree projects is likely to reach over $400 million.
In an audit released Thursday, OPA calculated that the $202 million bonds issued by the government for the consent decree projects would result in an average annual debt service requirement of $15 million. By 2035, the cost to the government will inflate to $423 million.
This amount is on top of the payments made to the federal receiver Gershman, Brickner & Bratton, which has been paid $4.05 million as of September 2009. “We estimate an additional $4.7 million to be paid to the receiver through July 2011, for a total of $8.7 million over 41 months,” OPA said.
But the payments made to GBB did not go in vain, Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks said. “When the federal receiver completes the consent decree projects, Guam should have a new state-of-the-art municipal solid waste landfill, a modern solid waste management system, and the closure of Ordot dump,” Brooks stated in the audit report.
“If not for their intervention, the government of Guam would remain hard pressed to accomplish such goals,” she added.
Brooks said the government of Guam is currently unprepared to restore its authority over solid waste management and operations considering the obsolete legal and policy framework for management.
But the local government has one whole year to overhaul the legal and organizational framework of the Solid Waste Management Division in time for the closure of Ordot dump in July 2011.
This process, according to Brooks, requires the local government’s active involvement and expanded role in key decisions governing solid waste management, which is currently under federal receivership.
“As GBB attends to meeting the requirements of the consent decree, due to the nature of federal receivership, the government of Guam has had limited involvement in key solid waste management decisions made thus far,” Brooks stated in the audit report. “The government of Guam should be proactive in re-establishing its role by drawing upon the federal receiver’s expertise in solid waste management.”
Brooks recommended the appointment of a liaison to coordinate and collaborate with the federal receiver to enhance the government’s ability to resume its proper role in managing solid waste operations.
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