Bedminster roused from 'sleep mode'

The controversial Bedmin-ster composting plant proposed for Iberia Parish will be back on the agenda in a few weeks, parish officials noted Tuesday. The issue has remained dormant since late last year and early this year.

One resident said the issue was in "sleep mode" and asked Parish President Will Langlinais that it be taken up again.

The Iberia Parish Council and Langlinais also are awaiting more information from engineer Wayne LaBiche, who five months ago said he would call out-of-state municipalities that have Bedminster to ask for their operating and maintenance budgets. He has had trouble getting that information, he told members earlier this year.

Langlinais has requested that LaBiche provide another update for the June 20 Public Health and Safety Committee meeting.

The council appears split on the issue, but should it approve the facility, one of two sites would have to be chosen. One site discussed is at the jail and one along Louisiana 675 between that highway and Louisiana 14, near the new water-sewer plant owned by the city of New Iberia and adjacent to the Louisiana PepperPlex. A buy-sell agreement has been drawn up for the latter site, but it's on hold for now, pending council action.

The Bedminster process, which uses a high-heat method to turn garbage into usable compost, reduces landfills by 75 percent, proponents say. It would cost about $7.5 million to build, but few residents want it near their neighborhoods or businesses. Some, however, say it's the answer to future garbage-collection costs and woes. LaBiche, who's seen several plants, favors the method.

Recycling, the Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce reprentative William Kyle said soon after visiting the Nantucket site, is of prime importance if Bedminster is to work. However, there is much work to be done to change the mindset of those in Iberia Parish, where recycling is only used by 15 percent of the population, at most.

It would cost $1.5 million to operate a 100-ton facility for the first year, LaBiche said. The parish already has $1.4 million set aside to begin building it, Finance Director Kim Segura said. The half-cent sales tax for rural-area garbage brought in $2,500,485 for 2006, according to Sales and Use Tax figures. That amount would seem to cover first-year expenses.

But current Iberia Parish Council Chairman Caesar Comeaux, Councilman Lloyd Brown and others are adamant that if Bedminster or some other method isn't used, landfilling is going to continue to take usable land and wreak havoc on encroaching neighborhoods. Prices will more than double, even triple, when garbage-collection bids are taken again in two years or so in this parish, Iberia Parish Councilman Barry Verret said.

Another sticking point now, however, is the cost just to research the issue over two decades, about $650,000, including out-of-town trips by council members and two parish presidents, as well as the cost of engineering fees.

One opponent, Iberia Parish resident Barbara Foco, said her numbers show the cost is up to $661,000, probably more because she cannot find all the paperwork, which dates back to the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"I'm looking for a kill, myself," Foco said Tuesday, meaning she wants Bedmin-ster scrapped completely.

The parish tried to put Bedminster at the jail, which is near Foco's home, but that failed because of Foco's intervention, she said.

The Federal Aviation Administration also stepped in, first noting it had no problems with Bedminster, but then pulling its support and noting that it could be dangerous to have air traffic near a plant, to which birds tend to flock.

"It's like in sleep mode now," Foco said of Bedminster. "The thing is, I've been gathering paperwork, and the amount is going up. We want a status report."

Iberia would be the only Louisiana parish to house a Bedminster type of facility.