Waste Management’s Model City facility is an important economic engine for Niagara County. Hundreds of employees, suppliers, contractors, vendors and customers rely on our facility and its contributions to our community.

The Niagara county residents who work at Model City and I take issue with the recent declaration by the Niagara County Legislature that the facility is a negative to the local economy. Without the direct economic benefits the facility provides, local municipalities would be required to raise taxes or cut services.

The Waste Management Model City facility pays more than $5 million a year in wages, salaries and benefits for our Niagara County staff. Employees and their families live, shop, volunteer and contribute locally to this county.

During the past five years, Waste Management has paid vendors, subcontractors and suppliers more than $22 million in order to carry out our day-today operations in the Town of Porter. In addition to our highly skilled employees on the site, local trucking companies, landscapers, janitorial services and many other local businesses are utilized at our facility on a daily basis.

As the single largest taxpayer to the Lewiston Porter School District (approximately $750,000 in 2008), Waste Management helps to offset taxes paid by families and businesses. There is no greater economic development than allowing families and small businesses to keep more of their money to invest in the local economy.

Our Model City facility saves the state of New York and local taxpayers even more money by providing an instate site for remediation cleanups. We are proud to play an essential role in supporting cleanups for communities across New York, including many sites in Western New York, such as the former Vibratech facility in Buffalo and a recent cleanup project at Fort Niagara.

To not have an in-state option for disposal would increase the costs of cleanups. This would be a further hit to the state’s budget for brownfield remediation, and would ultimately lead to fewer cleanup projects.

Thousands of abandoned industrial sites across New York will require some form of hazardous material cleanup in the coming years. Having a location that can safely stabilize, contain and dispose of materials removed from those sites is environmentally responsible and will prevent the high costs of transporting these materials to other locales from being passed on to taxpayers.

The expansion of Model City will result in more than $75 million in taxes to our local municipalities and school districts, more than $16 million in New York State sales tax, more than $300 million in payroll and benefits for employees at the facility, and more than $250 million to contractors doing work at the site.

The Waste Management facility contributes to economic development in Niagara County and Western New York in a very positive way.

Michael D. Mahar is Waste Management’s district manager.