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Home My WebLink About01.23.2025 SWAC Minutes APPROVEDJefferson County, Washington State Solid Waste Advisory Committee (SWAC) Meeting Minutes Regular Meeting, Thursday, January 23, 2025, 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Public Works Office, 623 Sheridan St., Port Townsend, WA Hybrid Meeting Audio and video recordings posted under Meeting Recordings on this website https://www.co.jefferson.wa.us/483/Solid-Waste-Advisory-Committee Opening Business Meeting agenda posted on website on January 16, 2025. 1. Call to Order and Roll Call – Tracy Grisman, Chair Committee Members Present for Roll Call: Heidi Eisenhour, County Commissioner Tracy Grisman, Chair & District #1 Don Rhoden, District #2 Steve Chappuis, District #2 Phil Sonne, Citizen-at-Large Rebecca Jewell, Citizen-at-Large Joey Deese, Waste Connections Glenn Gately, Conservation District Committee Members Absent Tim Deverin, District #3 Alysa Thomas, Skookum Site Manager Steve King, City of Port Townsend Pete Hanke, Port of Port Townsend Staff Present Al Cairns, Public Works Solid Waste Manager Laura Tucker, Public Works Solid Waste Education and Outreach Chris Spall, Public Works Support Staff Guests/Visitors included: Lacy Kooiman, WA State Dept. of Ecology; and Blake Nelson, WA State Dept. of Ecology. There is a quorum. 2. Public Comment was given on: • Contamination of recycling at Quilcene Drop Box seems to be an education issue. Why a strong push for curb-side services? Quilcene facility is important to south county residents. Waste Connections does not provide a solution for all south county residents. • Increase in minimum fee to $20 doesn’t seem to have had the desired effect. Guess a windfall revenue being experienced, because same number of customers showing up but now they’re paying twice as much for the minimum fee. Closing recycling drop boxes will lead to half of the county residents who don’t have curbside service throwing their recycling in the garbage. Anyone who wants it and can get curbside service have done it by now. You need to rethink closing recycling drop boxes. 3. Approval/correction of 09/26/2025 meeting minutes. Motion to approve minutes made by Phil and seconded by Glen. The motion carried to approve the minutes as written. 4. Staff report -Discussions on the Managers Update document included: • Under “Effect of Minimum Fee Increase,” the last column in the table should have been labeled “% Reduction over 2023.” Doubling minimum fee to $20 has not reduced the number of under minimum weight loads as much as was hoped. There has been a 16% drop in the number of vehicles dropping off trash. It would take a significant increase in the minimum fee to reduce the number of these loads coming in. Options for curbside garbage service through Waste Connections are 35, 64, or 96-gallon carts with once a week, bi-weekly, or once a month pick up. Also 1 yard (equals two 96-gallon carts) and 2-yard dumpsters, as well as roll off dumpsters for big projects. Mixed cart recycling would include: tin, aluminum, plastic, cardboard, and mixed paper. Glass would be separate. Co-mingling glass contaminates paper as they can’t be separated if the glass breaks, as it most often does • Under “Legislative Update,” HB 1071 calls for more studies to figure out what the problem is with recycling. It would mean a deeper look by a consultant firm to tell us what we already know and just kicks the can down the road. The Dept. of Ecology’s CROP (Contamination and Reduction Outreach Plan) collected this data statewide. The real solution is HB 1150. It builds on current programs but also places fiscal responsibility on people profiting from single-use containers. Hopefully it has a better chance of passing. The bottle bill has not been re-introduced. No appetite for what appears to be a new tax, even though it is not a tax. Bottle bill would be complementary to HB 1150. Zero Waste Washington’s website https://zerowastewashington.org/ provides information on legislative updates including upcoming votes on Bills. 5. Old Business: (none) 6. New Business. a. SWMP update/SWAC meeting schedule Al and Laura will lead the process of updating the SWMP. To allow them time for this work, Al recommended SWAC regular meetings be held quarterly on the fourth Thursday of January, April, July, and October, instead of the current six times per year schedule. And, meetings would be two hours instead of 90 minutes starting at 3PM. Changing the meeting schedule requires revising section “11 Regular Meeting Schedule” of the SWAC Bylaws. Al also recommended SWAC consider striking section “21 Record of the Meetings of the SWAC” from the Bylaws. This section requires meetings be electronically recorded by audio or video. The OPMA does not require meetings be electronically recorded. Requiring recordings could lead to possible OPMA issues if there is a technical glitch or if the recording does not start when the meeting begins. Meeting minutes would be made available online. A show of hands was taken for those in favor of the recommended revision in the bylaws for the meeting schedule for this coming year. All 8 members in attendance raised their hands in favor of revising the meeting schedule in the By-Laws. A show of hands was taken for those in favor of the revisions of the Bylaws concerning not recording the meetings and meeting minutes be posted online. Five members raised their hands in favor of the revision, two were against it, and one abstained. Staff said they would reconsider this recommendation. b. Low-income curbside rate proposal – There was discussion about this proposal which was referred to in the Recycling Service Revision/Low-Income Tariff Rate Memorandum. This would be the first ever UTC rate of its type in the state to provide a low-income discount (don’t know yet how much.) Looking at using either Assessor’s Office list of low-income seniors or PUD’s list of low-income residents. Both the UTC and Ecology are in favor of this program. SWAC’s comments included a recommendation that the PUD list be used for this Program. A show of hands was taken for those in favor of this low-income discount program, and 7 members raised their hands. Al asked the SWAC if they considered this to be a minor revision or a major revision of the SWMP. Public Works considers it to be a minor revision as it is already mentioned in the current SWMP. A show of hands was taken for those in favor of it being considered a minor revision. All 8 members raised their hands in favor of considering it to be a minor revision to the SWMP. c. Ancillary functions discussion (30 min.) There was discussion about the Task Force Recommended Functions table. The highlighted elements had the highest rate of support. Food waste composting could be done at the current Transfer Station site but not at the new facility due to the amount of space it would take up d. Sustainability Stars update (5 mins.) Waiting on webpage creation. Maybe February to launch the program. 7. Presentation on the work of Chris Jordan – “Running the Numbers” Tracy shared Chris Jordan’s Art Works for Change website https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/chris-jordan/ and talked about some of the art work on the website made from trash. 8. Partner Updates: a. Artist in Residency (AIRE) program - Tracy talked about the art piece Margie McDonald created. The application process for a new Artist in Residence is open until March 23. b. Skookum – Alysa Thomas was absent, so no update. c. Waste Connections/Olympic Disposal – No other updates than the low-income discount program discussed earlier in the meeting. d. City of Port Townsend solid waste/recycling/composting – No one in attendance, so no updates. 9. Future Agenda Items – Suggestions for guest speakers. Meeting adjourned at 4:30 pm.. Next Meeting Date: 2025 Regular Meetings Thursday, January 23 April 24 July 24 October 23 December 4