FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:    Lindsey Sampson, Lee County Solid Waste Division
                (941) 479-8181

FORT MYERS, Fla. (May 18, 2001) – Lee County is starting the process of expanding its award-winning Waste-to-Energy Facility by 50 percent – from a capacity of 1,200 tons per day to 1,800 tons per day.

The Board of Lee County Commissioners is expected to discuss the issue at its regular weekly meeting Tuesday (May 22) and consider hiring the environmental engineering firm of Malcolm Pirnie to begin the process of obtaining permits from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for the expansion.

Adding a third, 600-ton-per-day, boiler unit to the plant is preliminarily estimated at $70 million. Bonds would be issued to finance the project and consultants studies indicate there should be no additional impact to rate payers other than a previously projected two percent annual increase in disposal fees. This is possible because the county currently is planning to refinance the initial debt to build the facility, and the incremental operating costs are lower than the initial costs.

Earlier this month, the County Commission gave staff the go head to refinance the $150 million of Solid Waste System Revenue Bonds first issued in 1991 to build the Waste-to-Energy Facility if interest rates remain favorable. The bonds carry interest rates of 6 percent to 7.25 percent. The county has a policy of looking into refinancing outstanding bonds if, at current interest rates, it can save at least three percent of the present value of the existing debt.

Lee County’s Waste-to-Energy Facility was completed in August 1994 and disposes of the county’s garbage by burning it and generating electricity from a steam driven turbine. The facility burns 395,000 tons of garbage a year and generates up to 34 megawatts of electricity – or enough to power about 30,000 homes. Since the Waste-to-Energy Plant began operating, residential garbage rates in Lee County have declined from $216 to $188 a year. Covanta Lee Inc., formerly Ogden Martin Systems of Lee Inc., operates the facility through a County contract. The facility has been operating at its maximum capacity during the past year.

The plant meets strict environmental and emissions standards and has been the recipient of many awards since opening, including the Power Engineering and Power Engineering International magazines’ 1995 Project of the Year Award, the 1996 Environmental Citizen of the Year Award from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the 1999 Waste-to-Energy Excellence Gold Award from The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), and the 2001 Facility Recognition Award from The Solid Waste Processing Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).