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53 1. Lower overall financing costs. Tax - exempt debt is generally less costly than private debt - equity structures, even if the private debt portion of the financing is through tax - exempt private activity bonds. 2. More waste flow control. Public owners have a greater ability to control waste flow to their facilities based on the recent Oneida - Herkimer Supreme Court decision (See reference in Section 4.0). 3. Post - financing control. After the expiration of the initial financing, usually 20- 30 years, the County would still be the owner of the plant, reaping the benefit of lower disposal costs without debt service payments, and not subject to market pricing by a private owner - operator. Several existing plants, especially in New England, are now reaching the end of their initial service agreements and financings, and the communities they are serving that still need disposal services are facing higher tipping fees or loss of guaranteed available capacity. Of course, the actual procurement method should be the result of an open procurement process with several alternatives open to proposers to suggest as they deem them advantageous to the County. 5.1.2 Assumptions The following are the assumptions used for the pro forma Operating Statement: 1. Size /Throughput. As stated above, the representative plant is 300 TPD processing a total of 87,600 tons per year, which equals an availability of about 80 percent. The remainder of the annual waste generated would need to be transferred and landfilled; a cost of $50.00 per ton has been assumed for bypass. 2. Ash Generation /Disposal. Using a rule of thumb, 25 percent of the annually processed waste (21,900 tons) would remain as ash after the thermal recovery process. The ash can be disposed at a landfill at $50.00 per ton but may have to be disposed separately from the bypassed waste in an ash monofill. If found to be hazardous, ash would need to be separately disposed of as a hazardous waste. The cost of such ash management would be in the range of $150 to $250 per ton, including transportation and disposal at a specially designed and operated landfill. If a beneficial use, such as alternative daily landfill cover, was found, the cost could be reduced. 3. Capital Cost /Financing. The capital cost per ton is set at $150,000 per ton of installed capacity or a total of $45 million. The effective net amount to be financed was estimated at 125 percent of the cost of the installed capacity, taking into account development and permitting costs, financing costs, etc. That brings the total financed to $56.25 million. The all -in cost of financing using revenue bonds was estimated at 5 percent for 25 years, an annual financing factor of 0.0651, bringing net annual debt service to $3.99 million. 4. Electricity Revenues. The net amount of electricity generated from the system, excluding in -plant use was set at 350 kilowatt -hours per ton processed. The assumed price of the electricity sold was $0.06 per kilowatt - hour, which is typical of what many plants receive for their electrical sales. Any electrical agreement and its associated price would have to be negotiated with the utility. It was also assumed that the plant operator would receive 10 percent of the electricity sales as an incentive payment, with 90 percent going to the County. GBB/C08027 -01 24 August 15, 2008