It's been a financial millstone around Harrisburg's neck for decades,
sapping city services and draining the municipal budget to the tune of
tens of millions of dollars in recent years. But don't ask Mayor
Stephen R. Reed how the city's trash incinerator is doing.

He said he's being kept out of the loop as the perennially
poor-performing plant undergoes work to boost its efficiency and,
thus, its revenues.

"This may surprise you, but I cannot tell you how the incinerator is
doing because the operator of the incinerator does not report any
information to the city," Reed told The Patriot-News editorial board
this week. "I have been unofficially advised, confidentially advised,
that they are under orders not to."

James Ellison, chairman of the Harrisburg Authority, the city utility
agency that owns the plant, confirmed he has instructed incinerator
operator Covanta Energy of New Jersey to report exclusively to
authority officials.

But Ellison, authority executive director Michele T.V. Torres and City
Council member Patty Kim said there's no attempt to hide information
about what's going on at the incinerator, which could be saddled with
as much as $300 million in debt once the project is completed early
next year.

These officials said news at the incinerator is mostly positive, with
the $25.5 million project on schedule and on budget. Meanwhile, the
incinerator with an 800-ton-per-day capacity has been operating at its
best levels since a botched $80 million renovation was halted in 2006.

Authority officials pointed out that it was the current
council-appointed team that brought the plant's troubled third burner
on line in March and stopped the plant's estimated $1 million in
losses each month.

Torres confirmed that the plant's three burners will have to undergo
two to three weeks of outages each as they are upgraded and some
under-designed systems are replaced between now and the end of the
year. But she said the downtime would be staggered to ensure the
plant's capable of burning trash and generating steam and electricity
for sale -- it's economic lifeblood.

When the work is completed early next year, the incinerator should be
poised to hit much higher operating rates and finally have a
legitimate shot at meeting its revenue targets, officials said.

Even Reed said he has heard nothing negative about progress at the
plant. He credited Covanta as a good operator, and he expressed high
hopes that the completed project would show the plant's true operating
and revenue-generating capacity.

"The long-term future of the plant is actually pretty good," Reed
said, adding that he believes the incinerator has the potential to
earn $1 billion-plus over the next 35 to 40 years.

Reed said the project also would increase the plant's "curb appeal" to
potential buyers. Selling it remains his recommendation and is an
option that both City Council and authority officials said they would
consider.

If there has been a communication problem between Reed and the
authority, the agency's officials said Reed shares some of the blame.

Torres noted that the city's longtime liaison to the incinerator
retired late last year and has not been replaced. She said the
authority would welcome a city representative.

Ellison added that, as chairman, he's never received a request for
information from the mayor, nor has Reed attended authority meetings,
which are open to the public.

"If such a request were made, it would be honored," Ellison said of
meeting with or sharing information with Reed.

While the council, not Reed, now appoints all members to the
authority's five member board, one Reed appointee remains. In
addition, the city's public works director, Jim Close, routinely
attends authority meetings and has access to the reports and documents
discussed there, including Covanta's monthly operating report.

In the meantime, Kim, whose council committee oversees the plant, said
she's been keeping Reed up to speed on the incinerator, including the
possibility of restructuring the plant's heavy debt load to increase
its chances of breaking even and avoiding another hike in the city's
trash disposal fees, which shot up this year.

"I am willing to be the liaison for the mayor and the Harrisburg
Authority, but I am hopeful that a better system of communicating can
be reached," Kim said. "We have some important decisions to make in
the near future, and it is imperative that we have open dialogue and
work effectively together."