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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12.5.24 Manager's ReportJEFFERSON COUNTY, WA SOLID WASTE ADVISORY COMMITTEE DECEMBER 5, 2024 MANAGER’S REPORT Staffing Our recently hired two full time and one part time employees have proven to be great additions to our small team. We also just promoted our first employee who completed the rigorous training program that Justin Miskell, our Operations Coordinator, has put together. The training program is akin to an apprenticeship and it’s now possible for our entry level employees to advance upward to any level depending on time and demonstrated ability in each piece of equipment and in the operation of the facility. We do have two employees on extended medical leave but expect both to return and don’t anticipate any temporary reduction in operational hours. Transfer Station Replacement Planning Process Staff met with the Solid Waste Facility Task force on October 9 and reviewed the site selection work conducted by staff since the last Task Force meeting. The Task Force was then asked to score a general “North”, “Central” and “South” location within the study area based on criteria developed from the Task Force Charter’s Guiding Principles. The Task Force chose a general “South” location overwhelmingly, however there was a wide range of variability in the responses and a few members were unable to complete the exercise with the information provided by staff. Based on feedback from the Task Force it was decided to select from one of the four properties that staff had “shortlisted” based on a comparison of 14 criteria. Staff then worked with several Task Force members to give more definition to the criteria and to develop better Green House Gas emission calculations and reconvened the Task Force on November 6. Ahead of this meeting date staff received many comments through the project webpage comments section from residents of the Cape George neighborhood and notice that a large group would be attending the meeting in person. The Public Works conference room did not have adequate capacity for the +30 Cape George residents who came to voice their opposition to relocating the transfer station in that area and so the meeting was postponed before it was convened. The Task Force reconvened on November 20 in an all-virtual setting to avoid the in-person capacity issue and additional time on the agenda was provided for public comment. Despite the two consultants having to work through power outages and intermittent network service caused by the “bomb cyclone”, the meeting proceeded as planned and when it was obvious that the Task Force would benefit from a few more days of deliberation on the selection criteria and scoring system the meeting was closed with the Task Force asked to submit the results of their scoring by end of day, November 22. By consensus, and aligned with staff’s scoring, the Task Force selected the County owned property at the intersection of SR 19 and 104 (just north of the new traffic circle) as the property that would best advance the Guiding Principles that the Task Force developed early in the planning process. The scoring is tabulated below: PROPERTY TOTAL SCORE AVERAGE SCORE TOTAL SCORE AVERAGE SCORE TOTAL SCORE: TASK FORCE/STAFF COMBINED AVERAGE COMBINED SCORE CAPE GEORGE 14 13 22 15 32 14 13 15 21 21 180 18 13 20 12 45 15 225 17 RHODY DRIVE 25 13 26 19 28 20 17 17 28 23 216 22 24 18 22 64 21 280 22 STATE ROUTE 19 & 104 31 33 30 34 39 36 36 37 30 25 331 33 37 36 37 110 37 441 34 CENTER ROAD 23 25 28 31 37 31 36 37 27 25 300 30 36 37 35 108 36 408 31 STAFF SCORESTASK FORCE SCORES SOLID WASTE FACILITIES SCORECARD Staff will now work with the consultant to host an Open House to present this work to the larger community and solicit feedback sometime in early 2025. At the same time, and depending on staff availability, we will begin in-field explorations of the selected property and will bring this analysis back to the Task Force sometime in 2025. Recycled Glass Staff met with the Board of County Commissioners on November 12th to discuss the recent implosion of the regional market for recycled glass and the lack of a near-term solution. Staff also informed the BoCC that the $10K/month loss on continued acceptance of the material in the recycling program while landfilling the material was financially imprudent and the we would no longer accept it after Dec. 1. An even better summary can be found in this Leader article from the 11/20 edition: https://www.ptleader.com/stories/glass-is-trash-jefferson-county-to-stop-taking-glass-recycling-dec- 1,188139? Recycling Program Subsidy At the same November 12th workshop with the BoCC, staff discussed the work underway to identify the rates for curbside collection of recyclables in a mixed roll cart. Staff also described Public Work’s desire to realign funding allocations with the prioritized goals in the Solid Waste Management Plan by ending the subsidy for the recycling program and properly funding waste reduction and reuse efforts. Toward this end, staff will provide Waste Connections, as the WUTC hauler, with a Letter of Intent shortly which will allow Waste Connections to begin the process of developing rates for curbside collection. Staff will also develop a draft Level of Service Ordinance that will define the types of carts and frequency of collection that Waste Connections would be required to provide. This Ordinance will need to be reviewed by the County Administrator and the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office before being brought to the BoCC at a follow up workshop for consideration of adoption. This is a “bold move” as one Commissioner described it at the November 12th workshop. Staff would not advance this effort if it did not believe that it provided benefit to the financial health of the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund while providing the necessary funding to meet the prioritized goals of the SWMP (relevant Plan section below). It should also be noted that the BoCC’s responsibility is to assess issues from a range of perspectives and to air and deliberate on them in public session. It would not be seen by staff as unreasonable if the BoCC chose to continue with the source-separated program and tipping fee subsidy in its current form. You can watch the presentation by SW staff on Nov. 12 using these links to open the BoCC recording: 1) Jefferson County web page: https://www.co.jefferson.wa.us/ 2) Click “services” in the far right corner 3) Scroll down and click on “LaserFiche Web Portal”; when the page comes up, type in public for both username and password 4) Click on “Board of County Commissioners”, then click on “BOCC Zoom and AVC Meeting Files”, then click on “2024 Zoom”, followed by clicking on “2024-11-12 BOCC” 5) Click on “GMT20241112-170031_Recording_1686”. Give it a bit of time to load, then move the dot to 3:33:40 to watch the presentation.