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IRC expanding scope of session about funds

The organization that oversees recycling in the four Blair County municipalities where a state mandate applies will expand the scope of a planned gripe session with lawmakers about an ongoing shortage of state funds.

Previously, the board and staff of the Intermunicipal Relations Committee intended to invite only local lawmakers to a teleconference in late May to urge them to update the state’s Act 101 solid waste law to restore depleted funding to state grant programs for recycling agencies.

The IRC relies on grants to avoid the need for municipal subsidies from Altoona, Logan Township, Hollidays­burg and Tyrone.

At a meeting Tuesday, however, members informally agreed to invite representatives from organizations like theirs throughout central Pennsylvania — along with state lawmakers that represent their territories and state recycling officials — to the same forum, to amplify the plea for help.

The IRC and similar organizations are struggling to sustain themselves without subsidies from their municipalities because lawmakers over the years have “raided” the Department of Environ­mental Protection’s recycling fund, transferring between $125 million and $140 million to other programs like Growing Greener, said IRC Executive Director John Frederick.

That has led to delayed allocations of DEP Section 902 grants for equipment and facility improvements and reduced Section 904 grants that reward recycling “performance,” according to Frederick.

The IRC was supposed to receive $250,000 in Section 902 money early this year, but now won’t get it until late 2019 or early 2020, Frederick said.

The next Section 902 grant won’t arrive until early 2021 or the following year, which is problematic because the IRC will need to replace a pair of old yard-waste trucks soon, he said.

Still, even if it’s reauthorized soon, it won’t necessarily bring the funding back onto schedule, he said.

Meanwhile, performance grants have gone down by $20,000 a year, based on a DEP presumption of 15 percent “contamination” for increasingly popular “single-stream” recycling, where liquids often foul paper — a penalty that applies here despite IRC prohibitions against single-stream recycling.

The $2-a-ton fee that the state assesses for each ton of waste dumped — the fee that funds the equipment and facility and the performance grants, as well as a county coordinator grant program — is scheduled to “sunset” at the beginning of 2020, Frederick said.

It will probably be re-authorized, but even if that happens soon, it won’t get the grant income for the local programs back on schedule, he said.

Frederick has already been in contact with the region’s other organizations, which are also having trouble sustaining themselves, he indicated.

Those organizations serve an area from the Maryland border to St. Marys and from Indiana County to Lewistown, Frederick said.

“There’s safety in numbers,” said IRC solicitor Larry Clapper.

The IRC expects to run out of money by late 2018.

The four municipalities already have had to ante up $20,000 each to help the IRC through cash-flow issues related to the DEP funding shortfalls.

Low prices for recyclables are also a problem, because lower compensation for haulers doesn’t offset as much of the cost of collection.

The private subscription system that prevails in three of the IRC municipalities can also be a problem, as it makes enforcement of collection rules and collection of recycling data — the basis for receiving performance grants — more difficult.

“This is a crisis,” Clapper said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.

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