HomeMy WebLinkAbout051923 RE_ question about other alternatives to fee increase at transfer stationMs. Rader,
Thank you for your feedback on Public Works’ recommended fee revisions for solid waste disposal. I have responded to your comments/questions below in red.
Best regards,
Al Cairns
Solid Waste Manager
Jefferson County Department of Public Works
acairns@co.jefferson.wa.us <mailto:acairns@co.jefferson.wa.us>
(360)385-9160 X213
From: Sharon Rader <sharon.rader@live.com>
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2023 7:37 AM
To: jeffbocc <jeffbocc@co.jefferson.wa.us>
Cc: Al Cairns <ACairns@co.jefferson.wa.us>
Subject: Fw: question about other alternatives to fee increase at transfer station
________________________________
ALERT: BE CAUTIOUS This email originated outside the organization. Do not open attachments or click on links if you are not expecting them.
________________________________
Please consider alternatives to the fee increase at the transfer station, as suggested below. I doubt it will achieve its stated goals and will merely double yet another fee on homeowners
such as myself. I haul my trash because the local service is too expensive. I already wait as long as I can, arrive with a small truck fully loaded, and rarely exceed the minimum tonnage.
Thank you for considering my concerns.
Sharon Rader
970-903-3586
________________________________
From: Sharon Rader
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2023 8:31 AM
To: acairns@co.jefferson.wa.us <mailto:acairns@co.jefferson.wa.us> <acairns@co.jefferson.wa.us <mailto:acairns@co.jefferson.wa.us> >
Subject: question about other alternatives to fee increase
Hi Al,
Since about 45% of the car traffic are self-haulers like me, most of those vehicles (small trucks or trailers) are already fully loaded and will not be able to delay the trip to the
dump. Also, I wait as long as I can to accumulate enough trash for a full load, which in my small household is about a month to 6 weeks. I rarely exceed the minimum, and most often
am paying a much higher per-ton rate due to the relatively small amount of trash my household generates (we are avid recyclers, composters, and reuse champions). Your proposal will
not slow my trips since my truck will only hold exactly the amount it holds right now. What it will do is double the rate I pay and create a justification for throwing MORE stuff away.
That’s correct. Assuming a trip to the transfer station every 6 weeks with a minimum weight load (which will increase to 240 lbs. from the current 120 lbs.) you would pay $173 a year
for garbage disposal. If you subscribed for curbside service from Waste Connections and got the 60 gallon roll cart + 3 ea. 19 gallon recycling bins on an every other week schedule
your annual cost would be $335.88 – a difference of $162.55 over making the trip to the transfer station. I applaud your recycling, composting and reusing. And we are operating a
30 year old facility that costs more to maintain every year and has been over designed capacity for 12 of the last 15 years. Rebuilding the current facility to handle the ever increasing
tonnages and large number of low weight customers will take 5 – 7 yrs. so we need to address the congestion now. The minimum fee is the tool that we have available.
My questions for you:
1. Wouldn't the traffic bottleneck be better solved by having 2 workers in the booth during high volume times? That would double the speed of outflow. The worker in the booth works as
quickly and efficiently as they can. But running back and forth between the 2 windows slows things down on both sides. Please don't tell me you can't do that because there is only one
computer! It actually takes 3 servers to run the scale facility so not enough computers isn’t an issue. Space is however. The scale house is about a 1/3rd or less than the size it
needs to be to meet industry standards and to meet ADA requirements. The planning that is currently underway for either remaking the current facility or building a new facility at
another site will address this issue. For now, however, we can only fit one scale attendant at a time in the scale house except for training new attendants.
2. If the recycling center were moved to a location outside the gate, recyclers would be better served, and that traffic would be diverted from the line. The county owns the entire parcel.
This would enable another change that could ease traffic (see #3). The property outside the gate is leased to the Gun Club and is not available for relocating the recycling center.
The ideal fix would be a separate entrance for recycling, solid waste and yard debris (21% of all customers). Even a bypass lane for commercial haulers would be a big improvement
but there is a wetland to the west of the two lane entrance/exit road not showing on County GIS mapping that makes this a non-option and there’s not enough property to the east to add
a lane. As part of the facility replacement planning process we will consider a number of traffic revisions that could include an extension of Gun Club Road to create a loop through
the facility.
3. Route exiting traffic around the building, through the relocated recycling area and onto the longer exit road. During low volume times, the old egress could be opened. I have attached
a drawing. The red circle represents the relocated recycling center; the blue represents an alternative traffic pattern. Again, several traffic flow revisions are being considered as
part of the facility replacement planning process which includes public meetings this Summer and Fall. We are on track to have a recommendation presented to the Board of County Commissioners
in December or early January, 2024.
4. Alternatively, can specific hours for commercial loads be considered, perhaps during the last 2 hours of the day? They are much slower to unload. Small homeowners could voluntarily
avoid those times in order to avoid adding to the traffic. Yes, but we would consider limiting the hours that self-haulers would have access to the site. Many self-haulers, especially
those with trailers, have a hard time backing into the stalls and we often have to coach them on which direction to turn the wheel. Some cannot figure out that Reverse is indicated
with an “R” on the shifter. Some, despite having a 6’6’’, 300 lb. attendant dressed in reflective yellow waiving their hands and yelling “stop!” as loud as possible nevertheless run
into the building columns and tie up traffic as an incident report is filled out. Some self-haul customers take up to 30 minutes to hand unload their trailer. Some bring two pillows
and complain about the wait time. The compactor loads from the commercial hauler on the other hand deliver 50 or more households worth of material with an average turnaround time of
10 minutes. And all those self-haul customers tie up the business customers like building contractors whose profit margins get eaten up as they wait for the two pillow customers to
exit.
5. Finally, reopen on Mondays so you are not concentrating traffic on the fewer days of operation. Stop making excuses about staffing challenges. Suffering from staffing shortages is
not an excuse, it’s been a crushing reality. Our dedicated crew has worked much harder over the last 2 years to cover for the missing workforce. Despite being down to almost half of
the budgeted staffing at some points we closed for all of 2 days since the beginning of the pandemic due to staffing shortages. We manage up to 100,000 customers and process 23,000
tons of material a year with less than 10 full time equivalent employees budgeted and we run that lean to keep the tipping fee as low as possible. We could meet all our staffing needs
now and reduce labor costs if we didn’t provide driver’s ed as part of our service like many facilities around the state which operate without tipping floor attendants. We still have
a key Operator out with an long-term injury and are backfilling the position next week on a temporary basis until this employee can return. And we have brought on two new Operators
who are quick learners but still pretty green. When we are fully staffed, trained, and skilled we will expand the hours of operations.
I will add two items for your consideration:
* The minimum fee hasn’t changed since 2014.
* The Kitsap County minimum fee is $41. And they take yard debris 1 day a week. And the avg. wait time is almost an hour.
Lastly, I have attached the brochure from Waste Connections with the different service levels and rates for curbside service and also the Issue Paper we reviewed with the County Commissioners
last month.
Looking forward to your response.
Respectfully,
Sharon Rader
970-903-3586