12/28/07 - Grant helps fund recycling building

(As published by Cortland Standard, Aimee Milks reporting)

Cortland County received nearly $1.5 million in recycling grants through the state Department of Environmental Conservation to reimburse half of its $2.9 million recycling center, which opened in 2005.

The announcement of the grant award came Thursday and will help pay for the costs of rebuilding the 22,000-square-foot facility, purchasing equipment and parking area.

The county received the $1,492,077 through the DEC’s Environmental Protection Fund.
According to the DEC, the grant program provides up to 50 percent reimbursement to local governments for eligible project costs, limited to a maximum state share of $2 million.

“Municipalities send in applications but must join a long waiting list for funding. As funding becomes available, the state gives the green light to qualified projects,” said DEC spokesman Yancey Roy.

Don Chambers, county highway superintendent, said this morning that the county sent in an application for the grant money in early 2004.

“When you deal with the state, nothing is a sure thing. But we knew we were eligible,” said County Administrator Scott Schrader. “The program was designed to pay 50 percent of the costs for solid waste projects.”

Chambers said the nearly $1.5 million will be used to pay back the money the county borrowed to build the facility.

Schrader said the money will go into the county’s reserve for debt service and allows the county to eliminate its debt service costs from the operating budget.

“Now there will be a couple of years where we won’t have to pay debt service,” he said. “Because we don’t have to show those payments in the operating budget it will be reflected, theoretically, in lower tax rates.”

The facility is nearly twice the size of the prior recycling center, which was burned to the ground in October 2002 after a city man parked a stolen van over a pile of newspapers.

“We have had very good luck with the new facility,” Chambers said. “It runs very efficient.”