GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA
SESSION 2005
SESSION LAW 2005-176
HOUSE BILL 1097
AN ACT to authorize units of local government to award contracts for the management of sludge on the basis of factors other than cost alone and to enter into contracts that provide for the design, construction, AND OPERATION of sludge management facilities by a single entity.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1. G.S. 143-129.2 reads as rewritten:
"§
143-129.2. Construction, design, and operation of solid waste management facilities.and
sludge management facilities.
(a) All terms relating to
solid waste management and disposal as used in this section shall be defined as
set forth in G.S. 130A 290.130A-290, except that the term 'unit
of local government' also includes a sanitary district created under Part 2 of
Article 2 of Chapter 130A of the General Statutes, an authority created under
Article 1 of Chapter 162A of the General Statutes, a metropolitan sewerage
district created under Article 5 of Chapter 162A of the General Statutes, and a
county water and sewer district created under Article 6 of Chapter 162A of the
General Statutes. As used in this section, the term 'sludge management
facility' means a facility that processes sludge that has been generated by a
municipal wastewater treatment plant for final end use or disposal but does not
include any component of a wastewater treatment process or facility that
generates sludge.
(b) To acknowledge the
highly complex and innovative nature of solid waste and sludge management
technology technologies for processing mixed solid waste, waste
and sludge generated by water and wastewater treatment facilities, the
relatively limited availability of existing and proven proprietary technology
involving solid waste and sludge management facilities, the desirability
of a single point of responsibility for the development of facilities and the
economic and technical utility of contracts for solid waste and sludge management
which include in their scope combinations of design, construction, operation,
management and maintenance responsibilities over prolonged periods of time and
that in some instances it may be beneficial to a unit of local government to
award a contract on the basis of factors other than cost alone, including but
not limited to facility design, operational experience, system reliability,
energy production efficiency, long-term operational costs, compatibility with
source separation and other recycling systems, environmental impact and
operational guarantees. Accordingly, and notwithstanding other provisions of
this Article 8, or any other general, special or any local law, a
contract entered into between a unit of local government and any person
pursuant to this section may be awarded in accordance with the following
provisions for the award of a contract based upon an evaluation of proposals
submitted in response to a request for proposals prepared by or for a unit of
local government.
(c) The unit of local
government shall require in its request for proposals that each proposal to be
submitted shall include:include all of the following:
(1) Information relating
to the experience of the proposer on the basis of which said proposer purports
to be qualified to carry out all work required by a proposed contract; the
ability of the proposer to secure adequate financing; and proposals for project
staffing, implementation of work tasks, and the carrying out of all
responsibilities required by a proposed contract;contract.
(2) A proposal clearly
identifying and specifying all elements of cost which would become charges to
the unit of local government, in whatever form, in return for the fulfillment
by the proposer of all tasks and responsibilities established by the request
for the proposal for the full lifetime of a proposed contract, including, as
appropriate, but not limited to, the cost of planning, design, construction,
operation, management and/or maintenance of any facility; provided, that the
unit of local government may prescribe the form and content of such the
proposal and that, in any event, the proposer must submit sufficiently
detailed information to permit a fair and equitable evaluation of such
proposal;the proposal.
(3) Such Any other
information as the unit of local government may determine to have a material
bearing on its ability to evaluate any proposal in accordance with this
section.
(d) Proposals received in
response to such a request for proposals may be evaluated on the
basis of a technical analysis of facility design, operational experience of the
technology to be utilized in the proposed facility, system reliability and
availability, energy production balance and efficiency, environmental impact
and protection, recovery of materials, required staffing level during
operation, projection of anticipated revenues from the sale of energy and
materials recovered by the facility, net cost to the unit of local government
for operation and maintenance of the facility for the duration of time to be
established in the request for proposals and upon such any other
factors and information as that the unit of local government
determined to have a material bearing on its ability to evaluate any proposal,
which factors were set forth in said request for proposal.
(e) The unit of local
government may make a contract award to any responsible proposer selected
pursuant to this section based upon a determination that the selected proposal
is more responsive to the request for proposals and may thereupon negotiate a
contract with said proposer for the performance of the services set forth in
the request for proposals and the response thereto, such the determination
shall be deemed to be conclusive. Notwithstanding other provisions of this
Article 8, or any other general, or any local or special law,
a contract may be negotiated and entered into between a unit of local
government and any person selected as a responsible proposer hereunder which
may provide for, but not be limited to, the following:
(1) A contract, lease,
rental, license, permit or other authorization to design, construct, operate
and maintain such a solid waste or sludge management facility,
upon such terms and conditions for such consideration and for such term or facility
upon such terms and conditions, for such consideration, and for such duration,
not to exceed 40 years, as may be agreed upon by the unit of local government
and such person;the person.
(2) Payment by the unit of
local government of a fee or other charge to such the person for
acceptance, processing, recycling, management and disposal of solid waste;waste
or sludge.
(3) An obligation on the
part of a unit of local government to deliver or cause to be delivered to a
solid waste or sludge management facility guaranteed quantities of solid
wastes; andwastes or sludge.
(4) The sale, utilization or disposal of any form of energy, recovered material or residue resulting from the operation of any solid waste or sludge management facility.
(f) The
construction work for any facility or structure which that is
ancillary to the a solid waste or sludge management
facility and which that does not involve storage and processing
of solid waste or sludge or the separation, extraction extraction,
and recovery of useful or marketable forms of energy and materials from
solid waste at the a solid waste management facility, facility
shall be procured through competitive bidding procedures described by
G.S. 143-128 through 143-129.1. Such ancillary Ancillary facilities
shall include but shall are not necessarily be limited
to the following: roads, water and sewer lines to the facility limits,
transfer stations, scale house, houses, administration buildings
buildings, and residue and bypass disposal sites."
SECTION 2. This act is effective when it becomes law.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 5th day of July, 2005.
s/ Beverly E. Perdue
President of the Senate
s/ James B. Black
Speaker of the House of Representatives
s/ Michael F. Easley
Governor
Approved 8:26 p.m. this 12th day of July, 2005