From Deseret News archives:
Waste-treatment law killed
Tooele County won't do regular audits on area firms anymore
The commission opted out of committing to the audits because of the cost each audit is estimated to have a $25,000 price tag but one man says the commission is already missing millions of dollars that couldn't be found even in an independent audit.
According to county contractual agreements formed in the late 1980s, businesses that deal with hazardous, radioactive or municipal waste must pay mitigation fees to the county. EnergySolutions is the county's largest contributor of mitigation fees, but Charles Judd, former president of Envirocare, the predecessor of EnergySolutions, told the commission Tuesday that EnergySolutions might have shortchanged the county by about $15 million over the past six years.
Judd, who is involved in an ongoing lawsuit against Tooele County and EnergySolutions, says he has uncovered questionable information in his research that would not be detected by auditors unless they knew the ins and outs of the waste disposal industry.
Commissioner Bruce Clegg, who joined the commission after the annual audit law was added to the books in 2006, said he would take Judd's warning into consideration but maintained that yearly audits wouldn't be a prudent use of taxpayer money. The county can still do audits, independent or not, of the companies as often as they want.
"We just don't feel that it's a wise place to put our money because if there was ever a doubt or a question, we have the right to perform an immediate audit," Clegg said. "We're not nervous about it. (The businesses subject to mitigation fees have) been really good customers and clients and we've been glad to have them in the county and we're looking forward to doing more business with them in the future. We're not worried about it."
EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said Judd's claim was "baseless" and not consistent with the audits that have been performed on the company.
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