The city of San Francisco is poised to spend millions of dollars extra to hire a sewage-hauling company that failed to meet the city's criteria despite offers from a competitor that wants to do the dirty work for less.The Board of Supervisors is expected today to renew a contract with Norcal Waste Systems of San Francisco, which since the 1930s has held the highly profitable arrangement to collect San Francisco's garbage.
Since the 1950s, Norcal has also held a separate contract for the comparatively smaller job of dealing with the solid waste that flows to the city's sewage-treatment plants - more than 240 tons of sludge a day. While the work of trucking the waste to nearby landfills might not be glamorous, it pays about $250,000 a month.
A competing business, S&S Trucking Corp. of Oakland, had promised the city it would haul the sewage waste away for $8.5 million over five years - $3 million less than Norcal. But city supervisors threw out the competitor's bid. The supervisors questioned whether the company, which does similar work in the East Bay, had the experience to do the job in San Francisco and whether it would pay union wages.
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