Jan. 28--Brookhaven yesterday entered into an agreement with Covanta Hempstead Co. to handle the town's trash-burning for the next five years.

The deal could be the last between the town and the incinerator company.

Brookhaven and Islip officials are working on a new agreement in which Brookhaven would send its waste to an expanded Islip waste-to-energy facility once the expansion is complete five or more years from now.

For now, Brookhaven will pay Covanta $67 per ton, up to 250,000 tons, to burn the town's waste, records state. Covanta will in turn send ash to Brookhaven's landfill at a cost of about $50 per ton to the company, records state.

The price per ton goes up incrementally each year for the town and the company, records state.

Ed Hubbard, the town's acting commissioner of waste management, has described negotiations with Covanta as "very long, tough, and at times near collapse," in part because of what he called a market correction in the pricing of waste disposal. Brookhaven Town currently has an agreement to pay the Town of Hempstead about $140 per ton for incineration, while charging Hempstead about $120 per ton to accept ash, Hubbard said.

The new contract takes effect in late August and lasts until the end of 2014, records state.

"It gives us long-term security with Covanta and puts us in a position ... to enter into a new long-term agreement with Islip," Brookhaven Councilman Tim Mazzei said.

The town also approved a five-year contract with Trinity Transportation Corp. of Islandia to operate its waste transfer station. Brookhaven will pay Trinity $5.06 per ton to operate the station and $12.71 per ton to transport waste to Covanta in 2010, records state.

Brookhaven's 11 trash hauling companies will also be greener and cleaner because of a new compressed natural gas facility in Yaphank, said officials who cut the ribbon on the station yesterday. The facility is located on town land and is privately operated by California-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp.

The facility, which opened Jan. 2, allows the town's 67 garbage trucks to run on compressed natural gas, which officials said will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 304 tons over the next seven years.

"It's beneficial to the town and beneficial to the company," town spokesman Kevin Molloy said.

Earlier this month, Brookhaven officials finalized an agreement to accept about 60,000 tons of incinerator ash per year from Islip at a cost of about $2.8 million. That deal runs until 2015.

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