Detroit taxpayers have spent over $1.2 billion on debt payments from the construction and upgrading of the world’s largest trash incinerator, according to the nonprofit Zero Waste Detroit. As a result, residents have had to pay high trash disposal fees of over $150 per ton. The city could have saved over $55 million in just one year if it had never built the incinerator.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trash...b05c37bb767c15
That was back in 2017,I could not find where how much debt is still owed on it by the taxpayers even though it will no longer exist.
Imagine if that same $55 million a year was applied to Belle isle or a transit system or heck even free passes to a brothel so at least the taxpayers would have enjoyed getting screwed.
The company that built it projected making $1.5 billion per year in revenue based on the ability to collect salvage materials outside of the trash,whoever approved it back then should have seen it for what it was,no different then a sports arena where the taxpayers foot the bill while a select few reap the profits.
Even when it was first built they knew it was the most expensive way to generate power but instead they doubled down and said - let’s build the largest one in the world.
Sweet and sour victory demolishing it if future generations of Detroit taxpayers still have to finish paying it off.
I wonder what impact it had on the 10 million cubic yards of trash moved over the border from Canada per year,I guess Michigan still has lots of land to bury it there,what smelled worse,the incinerator or the diesel smoke from trucks lumbering by?
It goes deeper,trash is considered a commodity between the 2 countries,so the state charges Canada for bringing the trash to Michigan,but the city taxpayers are/were being taxed for the incinerator and the construction of it while the state was collecting the revenue it was generating in that case.
I do not know,but it would be interesting to find out along with how much of a debt the taxpayers are still on the hook for.
After demolition it could very well be the most expensive real estate in the city.
It kinda matters because if it was costing costing city taxpayers $55 million per year,you would think that it’s demolition would result in a savings of $55 million per year which could result in an overall tax reduction city wide.
But we do not know how much debt is left to pay and how much the city residents will be saddled with the $2.5 billion debt and the yearly operating costs on the new bridge and if that offsets any gains from the incinerator demolition and results in an overall tax reduction for the city taxpayers.
If one lives on a chicken or pig farm that smell is the smell of money,in this case the residents were paying $55 million per year for the privilege of smelling that,to bad you could not bottle it and market it because it surly was the smell of money to somebody.
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