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HomeMy WebLinkAbout4.23.26 Solid Waste Program Report1 APRIL 23, 2026 SOLID WASTE ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING: SOLID WASTE PROGRAM UPDATE Transfer Station Replacement Planning Process At a January 26, 2025, evening BoCC meeting, staff presented the four years of planning that was conducted with the assistance of the twenty-person BoCC appointed Solid Waste Facilities Task Force. At a follow up workshop with the BoCC on February 9, 2026, staff presented a summary of the work and answered questions from the public. The BoCC directed staff to continue to focus on the County owned Beaver Valley Road property for planning for a new transfer station. Tasks that staff and the consultant are undertaking presently or will shortly include: • Secure a water right from the Department of Ecology to a pre-existing well: Preliminary application submitted. Ecology estimates a minimum 5 year wait time • Secure an easement for access from Rayonier: Discussions underway • Delineate critical areas and setbacks: Completed • Seek a peer review of the conceptual design from other county solid waste program managers: Pending refinement of the conceptual design • Identify equipment and material types and quantities for cost estimating • Rezone the property as Essential Public Facility: Pending review of the project cost estimate with the BoCC 40 Year MSW Projections Staff developed 40-year municipal solid waste tonnage projections for use by the consultant in “right sizing” a new transfer station and by extension this will inform the cost-estimating of the new facility. The technical memo is included in your SWAC packet. Executive Summary: Municipal Solid Waste tonnages are forecasted to increase by 63% by the end of the new facility’s 40-year service life. Solid Waste Division Staffing A combination of flexible scheduling, a much-improved work culture, and a robust training program has delivered the longest period of staff retention in the operation’s history. As a welcome change, over the past 12 months the Solid Waste Program Manager hasn’t needed to operate transfer station equipment except for the therapeutic value of it. Three short years ago the Solid Waste Division had no Solid Waste Technician IV staff whereas today we have two with a Tech III nearing completion of the training needed for advancement to Tech IV. This level of retention and cross-training provides operational resiliency that translates into reduced customer delays and unexpected facility closure. Return to Earth The Board of County Commissioners approved and entered into a three-year lease agreement with Return to Earth at their January 20 meeting. This provides an approximate two acres of unused Transfer Station-adjacent property for a start-up food waste composting facility and furthers the goal of the Solid Waste Management Plan to use private sector initiatives to deliver solid waste services. Request for SWAC Appointment In addition to being the sole-proprietor of Return to Earth, Keith Dixon may soon be the newest member of SWAC. Keith applied for appointment and was interviewed by the subcommittee on April 7th, the day after the BoCC approved the SWAC by-laws revisions that included this new role for SWAC. The 2 subcommittee voted unanimously to recommend his appointment and the BoCC will consider this at their 4/20 regular meeting. More News on Food Waste Diversion Two very successful food waste diversion to compost programs are going on in the County. 1) Chimacum Elementary (grades 2-6) has been collecting their food waste since February in a program run by our newest SWAC member, Keith Dixon of Return to Earth composting. Student volunteers monitor the collection to remove contamination and ensure that students know which bin to use – compost or trash. Keith can give us an update on the amount of waste diverted from landfill to nutrient-rich compost for the school garden! 2) Blue Heron Middle School in Port Townsend began their food waste diversion program with a waste audit last February. Approximately 50% of the garbage was edible food that either could have been eaten or composted. 6% was compostable material like apple cores and orange peels. 8% was liquid waste. All of this is now being diverted to making compost at the Eco-Village next to the school as the school does not have an effective space for composting. Volunteers from the Rotary Club have been assisting the student volunteers to get the program going. They are reducing the number of garbage bags collected at lunch from 4 to 2 per day! Still More News on Food Waste Diversion Staff sat in on a listening session with the Department of Ecology’s Center for Sustainable Food Management as part of the rule making process for grant awards. This new grant opportunity will become available in 2028 and was created out of the Organics Management Act. There’s a lot of possibilities in this for cross-County cross-pollination and public/private/tribal partnerships and Ecology has staffed the program with some real thinkers and innovators. Public Works staff are happier than pickled daikon radishes that the focus is on upstream interventions. Below is a screenshot from the meeting of the early draft grant categories: Recycling Program Revisions and Public Outreach The following public outreach for the April 1 revisions to the recycling program was completed: • Updated flyer available at transfer station, Quilcene drop box, front desk, on web page • Web page updates • Info on County Facebook/Instagram/Twitter (additional info for each week through June 2026) • Articles in the Leader/PDN/Beacon/Village Voice • Info sent to local newsletters: L2020, PT Marine Science Center, Jefferson Land Trust, Coffee News, Next Door, Cape George, Kala Point, Port Ludlow • 4 community presentations in Port Townsend, Port Ludlow, Chimacum, and Quilcene 3 • Interview with Commissioner Eisenhour on KPTZ Staff did an amazing job on April 2 managing the single day transitional chaos with Waste Connections loads coming in while a crane loaded old collection boxes onto a semi-trailer and Tessera processed materials. In retrospect we should have given ourselves more time than none for the transition. Curbside Collection Low-Income Discount You may recall that part of our recycling program modernization efforts was the adoption by the BoCC of a Level of Service Ordinance and that within it was a provision for offering a Low-Income Discount. This applied only to recycling, but Waste Connections suggested that it should apply to both recycling and garbage. Waste Connections and Public Works met with the BoCC on March 23 and presented three levels of discount ranging between $5 and $15 and the forecasted rate increases across the other customer types to provide the subsidy. The BoCC chose the mid-level $10 discount rate and directed staff to bring back a Resolution for adoption of this rate making Jefferson County the first in Washington State to adopt a curbside collection low-income discount. The Resolution will be before the BoCC at their April 20 regular meeting and will then be forwarded to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC). Once the rate of participation in the discount program is known the UTC will adopt the new rates for the customers providing the subsidy. Mercury Lamp Collection Program Update As mentioned at the January meeting, Product Care Recycling, the stewardship organization that has operated the LightRecycle Washington program for ten years, had ceased administration of the program over program funding gaps despite a legal requirement that producers fully fund the program. We ran out of storage capacity in February and began paying for shipment and disposal costs with EcoLights in Seattle. This will add an additional burden to the tipping fee estimated at $20,994 per annum with an estimated $12,994 for disposal and $8,000 for shipping. Annual labor costs associated with collection and shipment preparation are estimated at $16,500 and those costs were never recovered under the LightRecycle Washington program which is a persistent omission in Extended Producer Responsibility legislation which now covers electronics, photovoltaic panels, pharmaceuticals, paint, and batteries. With a total annual program cost estimated at more than $37,494 and with $20,994 of that not budgeted for 2026 we are eager to see a new stewardship organization emerge. Ecology has been working with the State AG and the notice sent out in March of a $1,000/day penalty has inspired manufacturers to create the Mercury Lamps Retail Association which is in productive talks with EcoLights. Landfill Diversion Programs Staff have shared with SWAC level of service comparisons that have shown that our landfill diversion opportunities are equal to and in some areas exceed those of King County and Seattle. The table below shows the cost of delivering this level of service in 2025. Executive Summary: In 2025 we spent nearly half a million dollars delivering these non-mandated services and from an operations standpoint, one fifth of the labor available for every operating day was dedicated to providing them. 4 2026 Legislative Wrap-up The Washington Association of Counties helped staff track no less than 25 pieces of solid waste related legislation in this year’s short session, the overwhelming majority of which either died in committee or missed the deadline to get through both houses. Of note: • HB 2199 relating to derelict or abandoned vessels passed which will make it easier to remove these environmental hazards from waters of the State (thanks in part to Commissioner Eisenhour’s testimony) • HB 2018 was introduced on behalf of the WA Association of Counties and would have increased the current Solid Waste Collection Tax by 2.5% over 5 years to support local solid waste programs. It will likely be reintroduced in the next long session. • SHB 2301 relating to the current Extended Producer Responsibility bill covering paint products never got to the floor. This legislation would have expanded the type of products covered to include aerosols, solvents, and preservatives. • 3SHB 1607/2SSB 5502 aka the Bottle Bill died in the House Rules Committee. It may come back again next year under the name Night of the Living Dead Bottle Bill – Part 4. • HB 2233/2SSB 5965 relating to a ban on retail plastic bags died in the House Environment and Energy Committee. In other news from Olympia, the Local Solid Waste Financial Assistance budget made it through this session unscathed. This is the fund that Ecology administers and distributes to Cities/Counties through grants for approved activities. Since 2010, Public Works has applied 100% of the grant revenue toward offsetting recycling program costs and will likely redirect these funds toward offsetting HHW Collection Event costs in the next grant cycle. And there was a bit of a shell game with $375MM from the Public Works Assistance Account being diverted to the Operating Budget but backfilled with $379.5MM in new bonds. This is the account that we’ll be requesting $2MM from for transfer station capital improvements when the application window opens in May. Household Hazardous Waste Collection Events/Kitsap County Interlocal Agreement Below are the 2026 HHW collection event times, dates, and locations. These have been posted on the Solid Waste webpage, and a flyer will be included in the March PUD billing. Instagram, Facebook and KPTZ community calendar reminders will go out ahead of each event. Please help to get the word out. Saturdays 10:00 am – 2:00 pm April 11 June 6 Quilcene Roads Shop Chimacum High School 295316 Hwy 101, Quilcene, WA 91 W Valley Rd, Chimacum, WA 5 May 9 September 12 Jefferson Transit Haines Park & Ride Chimacum High School 440 12th St, Port Townsend, WA 91 W Valley Rd, Chimacum, WA The rate of participation for Jefferson County residents at the Kitsap Moderate Risk Waste Facility since the interlocal agreement began is shown in the table below. Transfer Station Capital Improvements Staff are currently working on the engineering and bid specifications for two capital projects at the transfer station: replacement of the customer scales and structural modifications to the transfer station tipping floor building and associated infrastructure with the scale replacement as the primary objective for 2026. Financing for both projects is estimated at close to $2MM and staff will apply for funding from the Public Works Assistance Account when those funds become available in May. Our hyper-DIY Operations Manager has pulled off the near impossible by turning bare ground at the transfer station into a new fueling station with a surplus tank, some boxes of parts, no instructions, and no spare time. The only element not completed by staff is the work of a licensed electrician provided by the fuel supply vendor which is scheduled for late April. This in-house project saved us (our solid waste customers) about $150K from the estimate we got from a contractor several years ago. It will be a huge benefit to the transfer station operation in that we won’t need to send staff to the Roads Division fueling station in Port Hadlock at least once a week and usually when we can’t spare them during peak customer demand. Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Brinnon 1 1 2 Chimacum 1 1 2 1 1 1 7 Nordland 1 1 1 2 Port Hadlock 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 3 9 Port Ludlow 2 3 1 3 2 2 3 4 7 1 3 6 5 3 6 1 52 Port Townsend 2 4 2 2 2 3 3 2 1 3 1 5 2 1 33 Quilcene 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 8 Total Count 5 9 5 4 4 5 5 8 8 13 3 5 12 7 10 8 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 113 2024Customer Location All Months 2025 2026 6 The last remaining operational efficiency we can gain at the transfer station – and the costliest at approximately $1.1MM – is the replacement of the knuckle boom crane used to compact loads with an excavator. This will require substantial changes to infrastructure and is scheduled for 2028. Other Capital projects underway are a long-term temporary repair to the failing tipping floor building roof, an asphalt overlay on the lower lot, upgrades to electrical service in the pole barn, and a lighting pole that will replace crew headlamps and flashlights when the days get shorter again.