Consultants in public spat over waste reports
07 February 2010Some of Ireland’s brightest scientific and economic minds have become embroiled in a public slanging match, amid claims that each other’s reports into the national waste market are erroneous.
Economic consultant DKM joined the fray this weekend, claiming that a controversial report published by the ESRI last week on the matter ‘‘contains a number of serious flaws’’.
Environment minister John Gormley preceded DKM’s analysis by accusing the economic think-tank of engaging in a public relations exercise on behalf of the backers of the controversial Poolbeg incinerator.
DKM said that the ESRI report, commissioned by Dublin City Council - which is locked into a contract with US energy giant Covanta to build and supply waste to the 600,000tonne Poolbeg incinerator - was ‘‘seriously biased in favour of incineration’’.
DKM’s analysis of the ESRI report was commissioned by the Irish Waste Management Association (IWMA), which includes some big-hitting incinerator companies as members, including Indaver Ireland.
The ESRI was forced into an embarrassing climb-down late last week and told The Sunday Business Post it would be withdrawing its study pending the analysis of significant errors. The institute may have to consider amending some of the report’s conclusions.
The ESRI report set out three primary recommendations to reform the state’s waste structure. Among these is the imposition of higher levies on landfill compared to incineration or mechanical biological treatment (MBT) - a mixed sorting and composting or similar facility.
One of DKM’s biggest criticisms is that the ESRI made a major error in claiming that the levy on incineration did not need to account for the cost of paying for related CO2 emissions, as these would already be covered under the ETS (emissions trading scheme) - where emissions are traded within the EU’s carbon trading market.
‘‘This is clearly not the case," DKM director and environmental economics analyst John Lawlor said.
In fact, the ESRI’s Richard Tol debated this point on the Irish Economy blog within hours of the ESRI report’s publication last Wednesday.
Critics and supporters of the institute’s thesis joined in. Tol is not the report’s author, but said he had sat in on meetings at the institute which considered the pre-publication aspects of the report.
One of the report’s online critics put it to Tol that, on page 66 of the ESRI report, the institute had claimed that ‘‘incinerators are subject to the ETS’’.
Tol defended the claim steadfastly, but later admitted that the report was wrong on that point.
‘‘My bad," Tol wrote.
The ESRI has flatly rejected Gormley’s criticism, as well as the inference that it was influenced by the fact that its client was linked to a major incinerator project.
The ESRI report itself was heavily critical of an earlier report by Eunomia consultants for the Department of Environment.
Eunomia’s Dr Dominic Hogg rebuked the ESRI over its claim that his report was flawed, and counterattacked by saying that the ESRI’s report contained ‘‘major errors’’.
Critics of the ESRI report say that it encourages the government to place less emphasis on reaching EU waste-reduction targets.
They also claim that MBT is preferred over incineration in the Programme for Government and in a recent Section 60 policy direction issued by Gormley.
A reading of both the Programme for Government and Section 60 suggests that there is no such preference.
The reality is that few journalists or public commentators are equipped with the scientific knowledge to analyse the conflicting elements in the scientific reports.
Up to this, the debate about the Poolbeg incinerator has centred on opposition to the waste-to-energy (WTE) facility by private waste collectors, the IWMA and Gormley.
Gormley has insisted that he is not motivated by the presence of an incinerator in the backyard of his constituency. Instead, his stated rationale is that a 600,000-tonne ‘‘super incinerator’’ would potentially dominate the Dublin region’s future waste policy for decades to come.
Dublin City Council fought a battle with private waste companies and the IWMA when it attempted to amend the capital’s regional waste policy in 2008.
The result was a High Court action taken by Greenstar and Panda.
The private waste collectors claimed that the local authority - acting as coordinator of waste policy for the capital’s four councils - had signed up to an expensive waste incinerator that was too large to begin with.
They also claimed that the council erroneously presumed that it could force all of the capital’s private waste companies to bring the waste they collected to the Poolbeg burner, to satisfy Dublin City Council’s contractual agreement with Covanta to supply 320,000 tonnes of municipal waste to the facility.
Mr Justice William McKechnie found in favour of Panda and Greenstar, and rebuked the council in last month’s judgment.
Here again, quest ions emerged over expert reports.
McKechnie said consulting engineer RPS and another economic expert hired by Dublin City Council altered key waste reports to suit their client’s needs.
RPS was part of a consortium which entered into an agreement in 2001 with the council to provide expert services on the Poolbeg incinerator, along with MC O’Sullivan Engineering, which was bought by RPS in 2002.
RPS and the consortium agreed a fee of €6.5 million plus costs associated with the acquisition of the site. To date, the consultants have been paid more than €20 million, The Sunday Business Post has learned.
McKechnie blamed RPS for ‘‘massaging’’ elements of reports that it carried out for Dublin City Council, in order to suit the wishes of the council. RPS has denied any wrongdoing.
In the same unpublished High Court judgment, economist Francis O’Toole, a director of the Bess business course at Trinity College Dublin, was also said to have altered elements of his reports to suit the needs of Dublin City Council.
O’Toole said that his findings in relation to the economic assessment of Dublin’s waste market had remained consistent throughout his analysis.
‘‘As part of the process of reviewing any economics of competition policy issue, I listen to and read comments from various parties, including - but certainly not limited to - the client and/or its legal representatives," O’Toole told this newspaper.
Gormley has said that he will appoint a high-level expert to review the contract between Covanta and Dublin’s councils - to take a close look at the contingent liabilities.
Effectively, he wants to make sure that, if Dublin’s councils cannot fulfil their side of the agreement to supply 320,000 tonnes of waste, he will be able to ascertain what the cost to the taxpayer will be.