From pre-Katrina obscurity to post-storm stardom, Sidney Torres has been called “the Rembrandt of refuse,” even a perfect mayor for New Orleans by one local newspaper columnist

The former real estate developer has done what some would call the impossible: his company, SDT Waste and Debris Services, helped clean up the French Quarter, a high achievement for someone who got into the trash business only three years ago.

“There was an opportunity there at the time the city was in need,” Torres said.

But has Torres used that opportunity to dump potentially millions of dollars of his costs onto local parishes he serves?

Follow the trail

Eyewitness News spent two months investigating SDT and the local garbage industry.  For days and nights, WWL-TV crews followed SDT's trucks, and the findings raise many questions. 

To understand this story, it is important to know the difference between residential and commercial garbage contracts.  SDT's agreements with the City of New Orleans and St. Bernard are for homes and small businesses.  Torres is paid to pick up the trash.  The parish pays the fee for dumping garbage at the landfill.  For commercial accounts, local businesses pay SDT to pick up trash, but SDT has to pay the cost of dumping that garbage at the landfill.  Industry insiders say that dumping or disposal fee is typically more than 30 percent of their cost.

At least one parish president raises the question: Is SDT paying the disposal fee for all of its commercial garbage?

“We believe we are paying for more debris then really what we were generating in St. Bernard,” said St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro.

Eyewitness News obtained almost four years worth of records from St. Bernard Parish, with the goal of seeing how much trash the parish was billed for by the designated landfill: River Birch on the West Bank.

Big numbers in St. Bernard

Before Hurricane Katrina, with more than 67,000 residents, St. Bernard Parish's former trash hauler, Waste Management, dumped an average of about 4,000 tons of trash from St. Bernard per month.

Now, if the 35,000 or so people living in St. Bernard put the same amount of trash curbside twice a week, about 2,000 tons of trash should be generated per month.

But 10 months after SDT took over the contract, the numbers began to steadily rise.  In July 2007, with less than half of the parish's population back, St. Bernard generated more than 4,500 tons of everyday trash.  That means that half the residents produced more than the pre-Katrina tonnage.  The SDT curbside contract does not include debris generated by demolition in St. Bernard.

In November 2007, that amount topped 10,000 tons, and for two months it was more than 12,000, more than three times the pre-Katrina amount, with less than half the population.  From April until August 2008, St. Bernard has averaged around 8,000 tons per month.

According to St. Bernard parish officials, it's this extra tonnage that's costing taxpayers a lot of money.

“We probably have been in the neighborhood of $1.8 million or so,” said Taffaro, the parish president.

“You cannot compare pre-Katrina or numbers after Katrina to today,” countered Sidney Torres.  “You had a parish completely under water.”

Torres said he can explain the huge rise in cost.  He said the tonnage increase coincided with the opening of a waste transfer station in St. Bernard, which is operated by SDT.

The station allows St. Bernard residents to drop off trash, and some construction debris.  The parish pays for the disposal of that material, an amount which according to Torres has grown as more people have returned to St. Bernard since the storm.

“It's the new construction and remodeling of what people are doing in their homes,” said Torres.

If that's true, that means in February, when the River Birch landfill billed St. Bernard for more than 12,000 tons of trash, residents would have needed to throw away enough garbage and debris to fill one of the large SDT trucks seen in local neighborhoods to capacity 29 times each day of that month.

Records also show St. Bernard Parish got bills from SDT for large, 30-yard containers.  The bill was $380 for each bin placed at the transfer station for residents to fill with debris. SDT billed the parish almost $2 million for the containers over a 21-month period.  Taffaro said that charge includes the bin, hauling and the disposal fee of all debris in the container.

The 30-yard container bills are on top of the costs the parish is already paying SDT to pick up trash curbside.

Justifying costs

That raises the question: If the parish has separately paid for the disposal of all debris directly brought to the transfer site by residents, how can SDT justify saying that it is new construction debris coming to the transfer station that is leading to the parish's rising landfill cost?

In a statement, Torres said, "It was a result of St. Bernard residents bringing large trailers containing new construction and demolition debris that could not unload into those bins.  Those trailers would dump directly into the larger pile."

Also, although FEMA has cut back on its debris pickup, up until August, it was still being done in St. Bernard.

“It certainly supports the belief or at least the potential that there's more than St. Bernard parish being hauled,” Taffaro said, “and St. Bernard was probably paying for debris that wasn't St. Bernard-generated.”

On two days, WWL cameras captured dozens of trucks dumping trash at the transfer station.  That trash came not only from SDT trucks picking up curbside in St. Bernard, but also from other parishes like St. Tammany.  One truck loading up trash on the Northshore eventually dumped its load in St. Bernard.  All of the trash, both commercial and residential, ends up in the same pile at that Paris Road transfer station.

When asked how his crews differentiate between what is St. Bernard trash and what is outside trash, Torres said “When the trucks roll in the gate, we know how many commercial trucks we roll in a day and we estimate how many commercial trucks should be paid for by SDT.”

Trail heads to Orleans

But this story doesn't stop in St. Bernard Parish.

In Orleans Parish, on four different nights during four different weeks, Eyewitness News cameras captured SDT trucks picking up trash from French Quarter residences, then WWL crews watched the same truck picking up commercial trash at Cafe du Monde, at Poydras Plaza and also the E&L building at Poydras Street and Loyola Avenue, mixing commercial trash with residential garbage.

It’s important to remember the City of New Orleans pays for the disposal of residential trash, but SDT is supposed to pay for disposal of its large commercial customers.

When asked whether his crews are mixing commercial and residential garbage in Orleans Parish, Torres said, “Not every day.  If a truck cannot make it to the landfill before it closes, it will come to the transfer station and SDT pays for that load to go to River Birch.”

But on one morning, WWL cameras saw something different: An SDT truck picking up residential trash and then later along the route picking up trash from large businesses, with the garbage going into the same truck.  WWL did confirm with several of the businesses they do indeed have a commercial contract with SDT.  Late in the morning, that SDT truck went straight to the West Bank and the landfill.

So are Orleans Parish residents paying for big business garbage?

Torres said if his trucks are able to go directly to River Birch landfill with trash, they do.  When asked whether Orleans Parish pays for that trash, Torres answered, “Correct.”

Eyewitness News tried to get an interview with city Sanitation Director Veronica White, but was told she would be unavailable.  On October 14, WWL also submitted a records request to the city, asking for all billings from the landfill from SDT trucks.

"I don't want my information on the street."

The city made those records available to WWL on Thursday but the station still hasn't finished reviewing them.

Taffaro says what will tell the real story is seeing records that are not public, the commercial billings to SDT from the landfill.  Taffaro says those numbers could help show whether commercial trash is being charged to his parish's account.

“I am more than happy to share anything, to show anything we do is straight up and there's no reason to hide anything,” Torres said.

But when WWL asked Torres to see his commercial billings from the landfill, his public relations person would not provide those documents.

“I don't want my information on the street, regarding the type of business we do,” Torres said.

But eight of SDT’s competitors didn't mind giving that information to WWL.  In fact, all submitted their commercial numbers and said they were willing to make them public.

This is an issue Taffaro says he's been dealing with privately for months, but now St. Bernard residents are beginning to learn their tax dollars could be paying for the disposal of someone else's garbage.

For the month of October, Taffaro says the parish will only pay for 3,000 tons of trash hauled to the landfill by SDT. 

In a letter Thursday to owner Sidney Torres, Taffaro lowered that number to approximately 1,100 tons for the month of November and beyond.

Over the summer, St. Bernard approved a monthly $20 garbage fee to deal with the rising costs.

Taffaro said Thursday that the parish will not levy that fee until it finishes investigating the findings of this WWL-TV story.