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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFinal Minutes 1.24.2013JEFFERSON COUNTY SOLID WASTE ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES – Thursday, January 24, 2013 Jefferson County Public Works Building, Conference Room 1. OPENING BUSINESS: Meeting called to order by Chair Richard Dandridge at 3:00 P.M. Members Present: John Merchant – City of Port Townsend John Austin – County Commissioner Richard Dandridge – District #1 Valerie Johnstone – District #1 Matt Hall - Skookum Mike Drumright – Department of Ecology Julie Robertson – Department of Ecology (replacement for Mike) Kent Kovalenko – DM/Murrey’s Paul Rogland – District #2 Members Absent: Staff: Al Cairns - Public Works Solid Waste Coordinator Richard Talbot - Public Works Solid Waste Manager Pinky Feria-Mingo - Environmental Health Tina Anderson - Public Works Administration Support Guests: Jenifer Taylor, Citizen Approval of Minutes: Correction to page 4, line 24: change in to is. John Merchant moved and John Austin seconded to approve as corrected. Motion carried. Correspondence: None Guest Speaker: Mike O’Donnell from Product Care is unable to attend. Al will give a briefing. Product Care was hired by the Department of Ecology to develop the state wide Mercury containing light collection program/plan. Funding will be done through the Department of Ecology. NEMA has filed a suit against Ecology about the funding element. Product Care is no longer working on the plan and Ecology has a bid due next week for a company to take over. The cost of disposal will be covered by the counties until a new plan is in place and cost recovery will not be retroactive. Action Items: None Sub-committee: Education Sub Committee: Pinky, Val, Richard D, Richard T and Matt. They met in November to discuss the education issues. Concern about mixed messages and how to coordinate the messages between agencies. How to better improve the messages: schedules only come out once a year and there is concern about customers not getting the messages. How to improve the delivery and readability of those messages. How can we make sure our contractors are providing a distilled message and delivered on a more regular basis to the community, so they know the schedule and what to recycle? Discussed Contamination issues. Most of the issues are across the board and not at any one site. Education is the key. A continued effort to get those messages on the dumpsters and drop boxes. Public Health is doing a series with the City of Port Townsend newsletter and will be doing education at the Farmer’s Market this spring. Education will cover “let’s recycle right” and what the consequences are of improper recycling. They discussed the barriers to recycling and the readability of the messages. They focused on the question of “How to change the customer habits”? Jan Kingfisher has been working on the “One Bag Challenge”; she has been working with the Department of Ecology to come up with freebies. Jan works with Pinky one day a week on education, creating a magnet message and labeling for recycling. They hope to get the message out advertising with the Enviro Stars and Rocky at the Rose Theatre will put up slides for free. No future meetings planned. Issues discussed are being worked on by Public Health and Public Works. Education and using the same language could be built into future contracts. Discussion followed about consistent language in brochures. People don’t understand the consequences of doing it wrong. 2. OPERATIONAL REPORT: Collection: DM Disposal: Kent talked about Island County that passed a combined service ordinance. It is currently in the introductory phase. It is not a mandatory service. They have one facility and several small satellites. Education: Pinky: Soliciting/marketing to teachers in the schools has started. Recycling: Skookum: Matt reported starting to slow down and prices are flat since November. Repair work on the baler. About another 6 to 9 months of life on the baler. New is about $130 $230 thousand. The new units are designed for heavier loads. They are looking at purchasing a new truck and trailer to haul glass to Seattle. It would require more sorting. Discussion followed on contamination and rate. Al noted that some sites are open 24/7 which adds to the contamination. Compost: City of P T: John M reported still selling compost. There are still about 200 yards available with another 1,500 ready to be tested next month. They processed 260 tons of Biosolids and 2,800 tons of yard debris last year. Solid Waste: Public Works: Al reported on the 2012 numbers. The trend seems to have leveled off volume wise. There are still a large number of transactions with a lower volume. The cost per transaction increases each year with wage increases. The only way to encourage a reduction in transactions is to increase the fee and encourage consolidation of loads. We have the lowest minimum fee on the peninsula. There was a question of reducing hours/days at the Transfer Station: there would need to be 2 staff on site for commercial load delivery otherwise the loads would be left unattended on the scale floor. Possible solution? Example: A larger minimum fee of $12.00 for 200 lbs would encourage fewer trips. John A asked about extending the graphs so they look less dramatic. 3. OLD BUSINESS; SWAC Notebook completion: Al suggested tabling the Yearly Goals, Achievements, Issues of Concern and Resolutions so that SWAC could pursue other areas. Discussion and recommendation on making a goal for this year the operations of the Transfer site. Specifically fee increases that have not occurred in 19 years. Comments on illegal dumping, yearly fee increases like Clallam. Kent commented that by making it an annual fee increase there were only “grumblings” for the first 2 years then accepted after that. The chain gangs in Clallam saw just the normal things. Question about feedback on the fee for yard waste. A log was kept and there were no negative calls received. The timeline for Workshops, Hearings and Education could put a new fee in place by January 1 of next year. Question about the fee structure in Clallam that is based on usage and volume. Briefly discussed equitable delivery to all of the county. John M would like a goal or focus this year on fees and the Transfer Station. 4. NEW BUSINESS: MRW Facility Customer Survey: Survey done November thru January 11. Total of eighty (80) customers. Only three (3) customers said no to paying a fee. Two (2) customers qualified by saying they didn’t want to pay here, they prefer the status quo. The other one (1) said no charge for under 50 lbs. Fees suggested ranged from $5.00 to $20.00 with the average being $6.70 City to $7.65 County. The average cost of service is about $200.00 per customer. The point of a tipping fee would try to get customers to change their behavior. This was a fantastic place to deliver solid waste information. MRW Review of projected impact of fee increase to Conditionally Exempt Small Quantity Generator customers: MRW Business Waste Customers: Al The fee has not been increased since 2004, but the new contract has significantly raised the fees for disposal and those costs have not been captured for the county in a new fee schedule. CESQG’s are producers that fall under a certain threshold per year. They fall under less regulation than Medium or Large Generators. Staff looked at three (3) years of materials and the projected costs of processing materials. The $160.00 includes their share of the costs including labor and depreciation. The estimated cost of facility replacement is $450 thousand. Question about the fee increase process. Staff will come with and overall recommendation at the next meeting. Reduced service option for the City of Port Townsend: Val Wants to know about a monthly pick up in Port Townsend. John M gave Val a customer service counts for levels. Kent and John M explained the rate structure and the costs of picking up one customer once a month on a street they travel weekly. Monthly service is being looked at for the new contract. Kent is currently working on a new contract with the city. Jefferson County Recycler of the Year Award: Richard Dandridge A vehicle or way to encourage product stewardship at a higher level with Industry and Retail. A way to pat them on the back for a good job. Several local companies were brought up as examples. Pinky spoke about the long range plan for Green Business and looking towards commercial waste reduction and recycling. SWAC would have a very detailed report from Ecology to use and would need to create a checklist. John suggested using several categories. This can be a continuing discussion. 5. FROM THE FLOOR: Jenifer Taylor asked about a rough estimate of the proportion of the garbage comes from urban and the city? The percentage is about 50%. What do you attribute the drop in tonnage in 2009? Based on the economy – buying less. Val read the garbage pickup comparisons between 2004 and 2011: Every other week in 2004 was 1,200, in 2011 it was 1,500. Weekly pickup in 2004 was 1,800 and in 2011 it was 1,500. This seems to show that people are trying and can reduce. 6. NEXT MEETING DATE: March 28 Kent asked if the September meeting could be moved up a week and talk about it at the next meeting. 7. ADJOURN: John M moved and John A seconded, motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 4:55 PM.