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HomeMy WebLinkAbout9.23.2021 SWAC Minutes DRAFT JEFFERSON COUNTY Solid Waste Advisory Committee (SWAC) Regular Meeting Minutes Thursday, September 23, 2021 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. NO IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE ALLOWED per Jefferson County RESOLUTION 45-21. Meeting conducted via GoToMeeting Public Access: (872) 240-3212; Access Code: 867-505-741# OPENING BUSINESS Meeting properly advertised and agenda posted on September 17, 2021. Roll Call and Introductions – Bart Kale, Chair Committee Members Present: Bart Kale, Chair & Citizen at Large Heidi Eisenhour, County Commissioner Lisa Crosby, District #1 Tracy Grisman, District #1 Jenifer Taylor, District #2 Alysa Thomas, Skookum Bliss Morris, Alternate City of Port Townsend Chad Young, Waste Connection Committee Members Absent Glenn Gately, Conservation District Tim Deverin, District #3 Staff Present Al Cairns, Solid Waste (SW) Division Manager Chris Spall, Public Works Support Staff Laura Tucker, Public Health, SW Education Guests/Visitors: David Pater, WA State Dept. of Ecology Quorum Determination: There is a quorum. Approval/Correction of Draft of Minutes for 5/27/2021 Regular Meeting: No vote for approval was taken on the May minutes at the July 22 meeting due to lack of a quorum. No one present at the July 22 meeting had changes for the May minutes. At today’s meeting, Bart moved, Tracy seconded, and the motion carried to approve the May 27 minutes as written. Approval/Correction of Draft of Minutes for 7/22/2021 Regular Meeting: Bart moved, Jenifer seconded, and the motion carried to approve the July 22 minutes as written. Correspondence received for discussion: None. NEW BUSINESS 1. Feedback/Questions from SWAC on the staff report Al suggested SWAC consider scheduling an October meeting to discuss a Contamination Reduction and Outreach Plan (CROP.) Bart thinks it will require a chunk of time to discuss. How does the CROP relate to the Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP) update? Al said to include it as an appendix or incorporate it into the SWMP. David Pater said many agencies are including the CROP as an appendix to the SWMP or as a chapter in the SWMP. Bart asked about customer hour revisions, what is behind that? Al said a steep increase in residential customer transactions and a lot of single bag transactions are causing a number of headaches at the Transfer Station. To address this, staff is considering whether the Transfer Station could be open to residential customers Tuesday through Saturday and expand the hours from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays would be for commercial loads only. Waste Connections could move a significant amount to Mondays from the rest of the week. It would require some capital improvements such as an electric gate to allow commercial customers to enter freely on Mondays but not residential self-haulers. Capacity at the facility is stretched while staffing is still at the same level it was 15 years ago relative to the amount of waste handled. It’s time to plan for replacing the facility and decide where to place it. In the interim, we need to consider increasing the minimum disposal fee to reduce the number of single haul transactions. Clallam and Kitsap have kept the regional average low. But by next year it will be more consistent with our per ton and way above our minimum. Any increase in the minimum fee or change in the weekly schedule will require approval by the Board of County Commissioner (BoCC.) Bart asked whether SWAC should schedule a special meeting or dedicate the December meeting to the CROP, to give it the time it is due. Heidi suggested a subcommittee could look over the CROP draft closely and present its finding at the December meeting. Heidi, Tracy, Lisa, and Laura agreed to serve on the subcommittee. Al plans to send out a draft of the CROP well in advance of the December meeting for feedback to incorporate into the CROP. The subcommittee could review the draft to identify any glaring issues that stand out before the meeting. Lisa prefers not scheduling another meeting instead let the subcommittee review the draft before the December 2nd meeting. Al said the work Laura Tucker has done advances the CROP immeasurably. He plans to have a draft ready for the subcommittee in the next 2 to 3 weeks, and he will ask Ecology staff to do review it concurrently with the subcommittee. By the time SWAC reviews the document at the December meeting, it should be pretty solid with maybe a few minor revisions needed. Tracy thanked Al for including the Artist in Residency Program in the report. Heidi appreciates the Port of Port Townsend request being included in the report. Al said Public Works (PW) and the Port have reached an agreement in principle for how to remove the Household Hazardous Waste (HHW/MRW) operation from the Port. PW will present a recommendation to the BoCC. 2. Partner Updates a. Skookum, Alyssa – Operations going well. A lot of product prices are looking good. Working to stay caught up. Laura asked if any end markets have changed. Alyssa said no. b. Waste Connections/Olympic Disposal, Chad Young – No slow down. Solid waste partners staying strong. Roll-off volumes are higher than expected. c. City solid waste/recycling/composting, Bliss Morris – Nothing to report for normal operations. Linda Atkins of Jefferson County Health is looking for options as to what to do with grease from grease traps. Septage haulers from Jefferson County have been taking it to Shelton who is shutting down, and Jefferson County is looking for an option. The City is working with the County, but the County is leading the discussion and the search for options. We all want grease traps to be maintained. Linda Atkins is talking to Goodman to find out the volume they are dealing with. 3:45 Committee and Public Open Discussion Laura is near the end of working on draft of LSWFA grant proposal. Amount increased from $90K to $168K with 75% of the funding coming from Washington State Ecology and 25% from Public Health. It is a significant amount of funding than we have had in the past and it will be used to implement programs. David Pater and Laura will be meeting to go over the proposal. Funding from the previous grant will pay for 35 composting bins that will be given out in two final composting classes on Saturday, October 2 and October 5. Al is pleased with the scope of work in the grant application on waste reduction. It aligns nicely with State SWMP. David Pater said it will probably be three weeks before it goes to the County. It’s a complex grant covering four different tasks. Laura said the goal is waste reduction with one of the tasks being education. There needs to be a high level of accountability to be able to quantify the results. Bart asked if anyone had any issues they wanted to bring up. Tracy is interested in areas of concern in terms of equity. Al said the MRW currently is closer to Canada than it is to Brinnon. There are three new customers for every one repeat customer at Household Hazardous Waste collection events in Port Ludlow. Having a fixed facility in Port Townsend does not meet the needs of customers in the south end of Jefferson County. It made sense 25 years ago to have the facility there. Holding four remote collection events as our service delivery will better meet needs of residence in the south end of the County. We need to craft language in our SWMP that addresses service equity. What are the opportunities on the west end? Most of the service is a private vendor. There used to be a drop box in Clearwater but we stopped about 20 years ago it because it was infeasible. Now we partner with Clallam to use their HHW collection events and reimburse them for costs when our residents utilize the events. Heidi asked about food composting. Food waste is such a deep issue. Al said a decade ago the County looked at the cost of a decentralized model and the revenue lost from diverting material. Came to slightly over a million dollars over 10 years to achieve a 50% reduction. Al said a centralized facility is not going to pencil. Lisa said Beyond Waste has been focusing on this and Olympic Organics is ready to take our food waste and they are only 30 miles away. The challenge is how to collect it and get it in a roll away. Lisa would like to see this as a discussion topic for next year. Clallam’s goal is to cut down food waste by 25%. Al will look for info on that here. This ties in with service equity will have to urban level benefit. This seems to be working in the opposite direction. If were going to incorporate a measure of service equity we need to do it countywide. Too many organics going into the landfill. Goal is to first reduce wasted food, then get food to people in need, then to feed animals, and finally composting is last choice. Tracy asked if there can be a place to dump useable resources before it goes over the scales, like an exchange area? Al said yes, when a new facility is built. Current facility inadequate for meeting customer needs and diverting waste before it hits the tipping floor. Want to get ideas before an engineering group for how we want a new Transfer Station facility to perform. Process will take to two to three years. Waste diversion will a key driver. We are hard pressed to serve our customers with our current facility and the pandemic is affecting staff morale. It is time to think about dates for 2022 meetings. Staff will have 2022 dates ready for next meeting, with meetings following similar schedule as 2021. Al asked everyone to read the State’s “Use Food Well” on food waste reduction. ADJOURNMENT Bart adjourned the meeting at 4:31 pm. Next Meeting Date: December 2, 2021. 2021 Regular Meeting Dates January 28 July 22 March 25 September 23 May 27 December 2