New Jersey County Authority Settles With Recycling Company

The Mercer County Improvement Authority settled its lawsuit against Central Jersey Waste and Recycling, recouping more than $400,000 less than they had hoped.

"This settlement is somewhat difficult for me and us all to truly accept," County Executive Brian Hughes said of the $263,000 settlement. "I think it’s (making) the best of a bad situation."

The Mercer County Improvement Authority was seeking more than $700,000 from Central Jersey Waste and Recycling, the company that was awarded the $9.5 million contract yesterday to haul recyclables from most of the county for the next three years.

The MCIA accused Central Jersey in court documents of diverting recyclables.

"We are pleased with the result of this very lengthy process," said Central Jersey President Frank Fiumefreddo Jr. "This has not been the easiest time for either the MCIA or Central Jersey.

"We maintained throughout that the allegations of wrongdoing against us were without merit and that the residents of Mercer County could only benefit from our continued operation. That position was vindicated (yesterday)."

Waste Management, Inc. received a $3.26 million contract to continue providing recycling services in Trenton. Waste Management’s bid for the entire county was $3 million more than Central Jersey’s.

"There’s one thing to estimate you had $700,000 worth of diverted material, it’s another thing trying to prove," Hughes said. "In that proving process, we could have gone through another $100,000 to $200,000 in legal fees with the outcome uncertain in the end."

The settlement gives the county the ability to void the contract with Central Jersey if any principal or director of the company is found criminally responsible for anything under the new or old contract, officials said.

It also provides a court-appointed monitor to oversee Central Jersey’s operations and finances. The county’s new inspector general will also be involved in that process. Complaints against the recycling company will be posted on the Internet, officials said.

MCIA attorney Bill Harla said the county would have had to prove each individual instance of Central Jersey’s alleged diversions. He called the settlement "better than fair."

"We tried to approximate what we would have gotten at trial," he said. "The amount of money we asked for was if everything went perfectly 100 percent our way."

The county has already spent $133,000 on the litigation against Central Jersey, said MCIA Executive Director Phil Miller. The money received in the settlement will go to stabilizing the recycling rates for the municipalities for at least the next three years, Miller said.

According to the lawsuit, Central Jersey was to collect and deliver recyclable paper to the Homasote Company, which paid MCIA $30 per ton of paper. Instead, Central Jersey profited from it, the complaint said.

According to the complaint, MCIA’s staff saw Central Jersey trucks delivering paper to facilities other than Homasote’s.

One facility had been paying Central Jersey directly for the paper, it said. The (Trenton, New Jersey) Trentonian