Baltimore County approves deal that could mean burning trash for 10 more years

The Baltimore County Council on Tuesday narrowly approved an agreement that will keep sending massive quantities of garbage to be burned in a city incinerator for years, possibly another decade.

The contract, which the council approved on a 4-3 vote, would pay $68 million over the next five years to WIN Waste Innovations, which operates the incinerator along Interstate 95 in South Baltimore. After that, officials could reassess annually for another five years, potentially extending the county’s reliance on the incinerator to 2036 at a total cost of $155 million.

Council Chair Mike Ertel told colleagues Tuesday that he believes the county is caught “between a rock and a hard place.” While the incinerator pollutes the air, the landfill is running out of space, and the county doesn’t yet dispose of enough waste through cleaner means like recycling, he said.

“Right now, I feel like while the incinerator is not, you know, the best way to go, it’s a necessary evil,” the Democrat said.

With the council’s approval Tuesday night, the contract goes into effect immediately, as it does not require County Executive Kathy Klausmeier’s signature.

Sometimes called BRESCO, the WIN Waste incinerator’s stack towers over I-95 and South Baltimore. It is the city’s largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions and has long been a flashpoint in debates over pollution impacts for low-income neighborhoods nearby.

Even so, the city and county both rely heavily on the facility to handle their trash.

Under the new agreement, the county would send about 215,000 tons of garbage to WIN Waste’s boilers each year — slightly more than the city sends and as much as a third of the incinerator’s total annual volume, according to figures the company provided last year.

Lauren Buckler, the county’s public works and transportation director, told council members at a preliminary meeting last week that her agency reviewed bids from contractors who could manage these large volumes. Staff found the next-best option would be trucking waste to out-of-state landfills — a solution that comes with its own environmental problems, she said.

Buckler said costs have risen somewhat since the county’s last contract with WIN Waste, in 2020, because Maryland lawmakers ended a long-standing “renewable” energy subsidy for trash incinerators.

But the public works director said she views burning trash as an important tool for managing the “four Ravens stadiums” of garbage the county produces each year.

Others, including South Baltimore residents, questioned why leaders would enter such a long-term deal even as the county seeks to shift its reliance toward recycling and composting. The county’s last contract with WIN Waste spanned only six years.

“Trash incineration is the worst possible option for Baltimore County to manage its waste and should not be considered a tool in the toolbox,” Jennifer Kunze, Maryland director for the advocacy group Clean Water Action, told council members at their meeting last week.

Kunze helped lead a coalition of environmental groups that has written to council members and Klausmeier over the last year warning about the environmental consequences of renewing the contract with WIN Waste. South Baltimore advocates filed a civil rights complaint over the city’s dependence on the incinerator in 2024, and a recent research paper pegged health consequences for the surrounding area at roughly $54 million in that year alone.

In a statement, WIN Waste senior vice president Timothy Vaughan pointed to power grid benefits of the facility, which generates energy by burning trash, and argued that resorting to trucking waste would cost Baltimore County residents more and come with its own environmental problems. He also noted $45 million that WIN Waste has invested in pollution controls and other upgrades, a requirement of its contract with the city.

“We’re proud to continue serving Baltimore County and the region as the more economical and sustainable alternative to landfilling,” Vaughan said.

The county’s decision could come with ramifications for the city, where leaders have pledged for years to transition away from dependence on burning trash.

Though Mayor Brandon Scott promised before his 2020 mayoral election to end incineration at the WIN Waste facility, he supported a 10-year extension after securing the Democratic nomination for mayor. The city is under contract to send trash to the incinerator until 2031.

The county’s extension drew opposition Tuesday night from both sides of the political aisle: Democratic Councilman Izzy Patoka voted against the contract, as did Republican members David Marks and Todd Crandell.

“We have to start somewhere with how we deal with our trash,” Crandell told colleagues. “Burning it to create pollutants throughout our urban areas is not the long-term answer.”

Banner reporter Céilí Doyle contributed to this story.