CPA board reaffirms airport incinerator fee

The Commonwealth Ports Authority board of directors reaffirmed during its regular meeting last week the airport incinerator and triturator fees it charges customers.

Board counsel Joey San Nicolas disclosed that CPA increased its incinerator charge in November 2006 but this was not enforced because this was never properly promulgated.

Two years later in 2008, the CPA board adopted an emergency regulation pertaining to the same rate hike. As this was an emergency regulation, the new rate would only be effective for 90 days and upon expiration, the charge would revert back to the old rate.

The board on Thursday voted to reaffirm the rates earlier recommended in the 2008 emergency regulation and the promulgation of the rules and procedures.

CPA executive director Edward Deleon Guerrero reported to the board that under the old rate, it is costing the agency more to run the incinerator than what it is collecting from customers.

Additionally, he said the U.S. Environment Protection Agency is requiring CPA to install a bigger fuel tank that would carry up to 6,000 gallons, along with some containment along the tank that will incur added costs. These, he said, are behind the need to formally set the incinerator fee to defray these costs.

“If we meet all this requirements, then our incinerator can get full-fledged certification and we can then look at other ways to make money out of this,” he told the board.

He later told Saipan Tribune that the new rate, if adopted as a final regulation, will become a regular charge that will be assessed airlines and ships.

There are two CPA operations where the charges will apply: the airport incinerator facility that handles foreign vessel waste from foreign vessels and airplanes and the triturator treatment facility at the Saipan airport that handles aircraft waste.

Based on the emergency regulation proposed by CPA in 2008 and reaffirmed by the board last week, it proposes an initial operating incineration charge of $1.15 per lb for the incineration of permissible foreign vessel waste or contraband as permitted by EPA and the Division of Environmental Quality.

The total $1.15 per lb is composed of the incinerator base fee of $0.41 per lb; incinerator fuel rate of $0.54 per lb; and incinerator surcharge rate of $0.20 per lb.

The fuel and surcharge rates, based on the same proposed regulation, shall take into consideration the actual monthly charges for fuel costs, actual manpower services/labor hours of operations, utility charges for incineration operation, and actual monthly weight of airline and non-airline incinerated waste.

The new regulation will soon be published in the Commonwealth Register.