Tag: Horry County Infrastructure and Regulation Committee

HCSWA Recycling Contract

The details of the HCSWA recycling contract with Charleston County should become clearer before this week is over.

The HCSWA board will meet this afternoon. Included on the board agenda is a timeline discussion by executive director Danny Knight to answer questions about why the process took so long from first discussions with Charleston County to reach the HCSWA board and Horry County Council.

The Horry County Infrastructure and Regulation Committee will meet Thursday. The I&R agenda includes a discussion about the contract between the HCSWA and Charleston County, including the assumptions that go into the calculation of profit for the HCSWA.

According to reports from Charleston County, the county spent $8 million on recycling at its Romney Street facility last fiscal year and recyclables sold garnered $1.7 million.

There are some questions among committee members and others interested in the project why the same recyclables, with the added cost of trucking, can be processed at a profit in Horry County.

Additionally, sources familiar with the contract approval process say the Charleston County has purchased (or is in the process of purchasing) equipment to repair its Romney Street facililty in order to process recyclables in county in the near future.

Those sources predict the contract between Charleston County and the HCSWA will be cancelled within 90-120 days regardless of what happens with third reading of the budget amendment ordinance by Horry County Council.

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HCSWA Laying Low

For the past several months, officials at the Horry County Solid Waste Authority (HCSWA) have been pushing changes with the agency’s by-laws so that HCSWA would not have to file a Form 990 with the IRS.

All of a sudden those changes are not a priority anymore because the Horry County Infrastructure and Regulation Committee is taking a closer look at the form of its oversight of the HCSWA.

Actually, oversight is a misnomer as Horry County Council has done little oversight of this agency for the past decade.

We won’t get into the specifics of the reasons for the changes. Suffice it to say the HCSWA does not want to explain to the IRS why it has $37 million in the bank – $22 million in questionable future expense reserves and $15 million excess reserves.

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Changing the HCWSA Form of Governance

Horry County council member Jody Prince directed county staff to prepare a briefing document for the September 12, 2013 Infrastructure and Regulation Committee meeting that discusses other options for governance of the HCWSA (Horry County Solid Waste Authority).

“I’m making an official request, as chairman of the (I&R) committee, asking staff for options for status, other than authority status, for the HCSWA, including committee, advisory board and (county government) department, and the procedures required to make such a change,” said Prince.

Prince’s request came after discussions about a resolution in which the HCSWA requests the county to approve a recycling incentive program contract between the HCSWA and the county. The committee deferred consideration of the resolution at least until the September meeting.

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SCDNR Delays International Drive Again

Since International Drive was first proposed, the S.C. Department of Natural Resources has thrown one roadblock after another in the way of the project.

Issues with red cockaded woodpeckers, right of way disputes, bear crossings and chain link fences have all been overcome only to find now the DNR has teamed with the Army Corps of Engineers to discover wetlands that have to be mitigated before permanent road construction can begin.

Two absolutes I quickly learned after moving to Horry County 30 years ago were: there is no such thing as a conflict of interest for politicians and there are no wetlands in Horry County. These were written in stone as the county was transformed by development.

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RCPS Properties Requests Expanded Mine Permit

A request for an expanded mine permit from Horry County by RCPS Properties has caused controversy recently among some residents of the Carolina Forest neighborhood area.

If approved, the permit would expand the current footprint of the mine to a total of 301 acres. Most of the mining takes place behind the Sparks Toyota and Dunkin Donuts properties between West Perry Road and Myrtle Ridge Drive off U.S. 501.

The mining operation has been owned RCPS Properties since 1996 and operates on an expanse of land which has been mined since the 1950’s.

According to RCPS Properties general manager Justin Harris, approval of the permit will not result in an increase in volume of the mining operations.

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