Local officials voting on an interim contract with the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. would do well to approve it, an attorney who works with customer communities said Monday afternoon at a workshop of the Bangor City Council.

Operators of the trash-to-energy incinerator in Orrington have said that they faced a financial crisis and no longer would sink their own capital into the facility. They told the 90 communities that use PERC that they needed more money — an increase in the tipping fee, the cost of disposing of trash.

And that is just the interim need to be paid while communities and PERC renegotiate a long-term contract.

The two, the interim and long-term contract, are separate issues, Paul Gibbons, an attorney who works with Mid-Coast Solid Waste, told councilors.

“Not to sign this temporary agreement would be to lose an opportunity,” Gibbons said. The temporary agreement averts a crisis, gives communities a chance to improve their poor bargaining position, and opens up time to start to iron out related problems like the disposal of non-burnable material and ash.

The meeting which also was attended by Donald Meaghar of Eastern Maine Development Committee and attorney Thomas Brown, both of whom have worked closely with PERC’s customer communities for several years.

They both said that the meeting with Bangor councilors was actually a dry run of a meeting to be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 3, at the Bangor Civic Center.

Last summer, when PERC officials announced they wanted to renegotiate the contracts, they also provide $60,000 for the communities to hire a consultant. And the Committee to Analyze PERC was formed to monitor the situation.

The consultant’s findings provide the basis for the interim contract, which calls for a $19 increase in the tipping fee, with a $39 cap, retroactive to April 1, and would need to be ratified by communities providing 90 percent of the tonnage of trash taken to PERC.

The money from the tipping fees would be paid into an escrow account held by EMDC, Brown said. It would be released to PERC only when the books had been reviewed and the expenses justified.

The interim agreement has been the source of consternation for many communities. In fact, Brewer councilors voted recently not to ratify it.

Officials are expecting a solid turnout Tuesday night. The Committee to Analyze PERC said in a release that a representative from the consultant would explain the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the report.

In addition, members of the committee will explain what has happened in the seven months since PERC requested the