Detroit Mayor Kenneth Cockrel and Synagro mutually agree to immediately terminate their contract

DETROIT, MI – Today the City of Detroit and Synagro Technologies, Inc. mutually agreed to terminate the contract for trucking and disposal of sludge. Detroit Mayor Kenneth V. Cockrel, Jr. through the law department, initiated contact with Synagro President Robert Boucher.

Discussions began earlier this morning with Boucher, agreeing immediately that under the current conditions created by the James Rosendall’s guilty plea, it was in the interest of both parties to terminate the contract. Mr. Boucher and Synagro have agreed to cooperate in the transition to Homrich, Inc., a trucking company that has a pre-existing landfill contract with the city. Boucher also has agreed not to pursue any legal action against the city for whatever reason based on this decision.

As soon as Tuesday February 3, 2009, Homrich will truck sludge from Detroit’s wastewater treatment plan to a landfill owned by Waste Management at their Pine Tree Acres facility. Waste Management is also currently under contract with the City of Detroit.

“Based on the guilty plea and conviction of Rosendall and the way this contract was approved it became clear that we needed to take immediate action to terminate this contract,” said Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel. “It also became evident that we needed to terminate this relationship in a way to protect the city against any legal action as well as to ensure that we were able to dispose the excess solids emerging from the incinerator in an environmentally expedient way,” the Mayor said.

“I, like many others in this city, are looking forward to ending this sad chapter in our city’s history and ending corruption in city government,” said Cockrel. “We owe it to ourselves to put an end to doing business as usual in this city and encourage those who may be involved in this case to cooperate with federal authorities so that we all can move forward with the business of this city.”