MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

SOLID WASTE & RECYCLING COMMITTEE MEETING

Wednesday, March 7, 2001

Council Chamber

Members Present:  Bill Atherton (Chair), Susan McLain (Vice Chair)

Also present:    David Bragdon, Rod Park

Absent:    Rod Monroe (excused)

Chair Atherton called the meeting to order at 3:36 p.m.

1.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE FEBRUARY 7, 2001 SOLID WASTE & RECYCLING COMMITTEE MEETING

2.  REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR’S BRIEFING

Terry Peterson, Director, Regional Environmental Management Department, discussed the solid waste excise tax rate Executive Officer Burton had submitted for Council consideration, upcoming hazardous waste roundups, results of the Earth Day billboard art contest, the Metro sponsored tire legislation, and the new REM brochures on natural gardening and composting. (For more details, see the copy of the update attached to the permanent record of this meeting as well as copies of the brochures.).

Councilor McLain said she would appreciate having an analysis of the solid waste system and the downturn of the excise tax numbers as an agenda item at a future meeting.

Mr. Petersen invited the committee to attend the unveiling of the winning billboards from the artwork contest on April 4^th.

3.  WORK SESSION

Mr. Petersen reminded the committee that Chair Atherton had asked for two specific topics for this work session: the history of the tonnage caps at local transfer stations and the Metro solid waste fee system. He said the department welcomed the opportunity to answer any questions the committee may have.

Doug Anderson, Manager, Waste Reduction Planning and Outreach, narrated a slide presentation regarding tonnage caps. It covered the main policy drivers, why 50,000 tons was chosen as the cap, what was the trade-off of competition vs. scale economies, whether the cap was too small, and options considered during and after 1998. (See a hard copy of the slides included with the permanent record of this meeting.)

The committee discussed problems of vertical integration, collection and transportation costs, and different options for the solid waste tonnage cap.

Councilor McLain said the list Mr. Anderson presented did not reflect the two publicly owned transfer stations that were part of the system, and whatever was done to the system would affect them as well. She felt they could not talk about this piece of the system moving without talking about the ramifications to both our public system and our rate systems.

Chair Atherton said a discussion about rates was coming.

Councilor McLain added that the present code states there has to be a net benefit to the overall system. You can’t talk about the caps without the net benefit.

Chair Atherton asked what would happen if the distinction between regional and local transfer stations was eliminated from the code.

Mr. Anderson speculated that there would be a couple of big facilities owned by big companies. He thought the industry would be interested in weighing in on this.

Chair Atherton asked if a lack of competition would be a concern in that case. He wondered whether there should be caps or whether the designation should not be made at all. He wondered if the industry should decide. He asked about the options if there was a lack of competition.

Mr. Anderson said if you didn’t have competition, then you had a market structure the government authority could choose to intervene in. He added that the level of intervention should be in pursuit of some objective.

Councilor McLain said she would want to know the ramifications to the rate payer if we let the market price to its thing.

Chair Atherton said in theory, there would be a greater efficiency in transportation and economies of scale and rates would go down.

Councilor McLain asked what kind of facilities those would be. She said her analysis of the material she had been given was that there would be no ratepayer improvement, and probably a lot of small guys would be out of business.

Chair Atherton said the Council always had the potential to step in and regulate. They could say they had to take all customers and charge equivalent rates.

Councilor McLain said she would be more than willing to wade into that conversation. She said it could not be tossed out there without any regulation.

Chair Atherton responded that he did not intend that.

Presiding Officer Bragdon asked if there was geographic thought given to how large a catchment area should be served, or the optimal turn time for trucks. He asked if that evolved as population patterns changed.

Mr. Anderson said they had looked at those kinds of issues and the research was available. He said the difficulty of implementing that in the system was whether it would be logical to grant an exclusive franchise area for service to a facility. He said they had not come to closure about taking that step. It was a balancing between letting a private operator simply open for business or forcing people to go with a residential franchise and not have a choice of haulers. He added that it was a big discussion.

Presiding Officer Bragdon wondered to what extent this regulation would coincide with the natural market.

Mr. Anderson said they had looked at it both ways with the transportation department and he would be happy to share the data.

Mr. Petersen said where the transportation models failed when they looked at a least cost gravity flow situation was the vertical integration of companies that were making decisions rational to them about where they haul their waste, that may not be rational when looking at the typical transportation model.

Councilor McLain said some of the maps demonstrated that the under served areas they were trying to look at had shrunk in different ways because of other decisions the companies were making. She saw a definite pattern depending on who owned the facility and the hauler company. She pointed out that when they were looking at this in 1998, the trade offs on overall service and benefit to the general public and the components of private and public owned facilities, all took some equal bearing. She said it depended on how they prioritized and what they were trying to do.

Chair Atherton said keeping public facilities whole and paying off the debt was a guaranteed goal of the strategic plan. he said to the best they could open it up, they wanted to use the free market and the wisdom of private industry. He said they had testimony and other information that showed the caps and the designation of local vs. regional transfer stations and what they could do was interfering with the plan. He thought small recycling centers could be an answer. He asked if Metro could regulate the siting of those facilities.

Mr. Petersen commented that he was always amazed at the social air at Metro South and the other facilities. He said they had chosen not to regulate the source separated kind of recycling drop off sites. He said there were a lot of drop off sites like that for clean waste.

Chair Atherton said he wanted to have more discussion on the caps issue. He had hoped more of the councilors would have attended this committee meeting.

Presiding Officer Bragdon said it would have been better. He said it had been very useful for him to understand the history.

Mr. Anderson said it struck him that there was work to be done in the sense that they had all identified a number of objectives, options, concerns and research needs. He asked about a work plan to get those answers for the committee.

Mr. Petersen thought many of the general objectives were appropriate for the strategic plan. he felt that was the time to make statements about the ownership of the facilities. He heard the committee wanted to maintain the public facilities. He said if that was the Council’s position, it should be articulated very clearly.

Chair Atherton said he would have an outline of the strategic plan for the next committee meeting. He said he agreed with conversations he had with other councilors, that the transfer stations should remain as part of the regulatory framework. He said they did need to pay down the debt on them. He could see an opportunity to get rid of a lot of regulatory and administrative overburden.

Mr. Petersen said they needed to take care not to wrap too much up into the strategic plan. He was concerned that there were important details that could get lost. He felt there should be an implementation phase to the plan. He agreed with Councilor McLain that they should not just wipe the slate clean with quick decisions on implementation.

Chair Atherton asked if they could require that all facilities provide at least minimal dealings with hazardous waste

Mr. Petersen responded that it was unlikely as it was a very difficult process to get the permits.

Councilor McLain said that issue had been brought up before. She said the Council said then that they wanted the standards kept as high as the permit would require and they felt many of those facilities would not be able to do that.

Chair Atherton asked about taking a position of providing as many hazardous waste facilities as possible to ease the burden of citizens bringing stuff to the two current permanent hazardous waste facilities. He asked what about adding a third facility.

Councilor McLain said that would have to be balanced with the cost of the facility and what they could do with satellite and outreach events.

Mr. Petersen cautioned that was why he did not want to try to solve too many things with the strategic plan. He said there had been a pretty elaborate planning process on hazardous waste.

Councilor McLain reiterated that they needed to get into the general strategic plan and have the conversation about definition and then talk about the pros and cons. She felt it would be beneficial at the next committee meeting.

Chair Atherton said they would take up whole transfer station issue.

Ray Phelps, Lobbyist for BFI/Allied Waste, observed that there is also a private transfer station in Forest Grove that should be counted with the regional transfer stations. He said there were two areas of the system with a need, east Multnomah County and east Washington County which are the fastest growing areas of the region. He never understood why the cap was in place as it only prevented more recycling and was arbitrary. He said local government regulates disposal costs at the curb and are best equipped to do that. He said if Metro offered a competitive service for the gathering and landfilling of solid waste, their job was done. He said the Council should not be tortured over regulating a rate system they didn’t have any control over.

Councilor McLain said that making the regional fee competitive meant they had to take an in-depth view of what the regional fee actually accounted for. She said the cap issue influenced the system fee and there was no way to have a competitive regional disposal fee if they did not pay attention to how much the system fee could bear.

In regard to turning people away, she said it was their choice about who to bring in and they were bringing in people who were more profitable to them. She said they had to be concerned about the overall regional ratepayer and it was not as simple as just letting the local jurisdictions handle it. She said they needed to have a full conversation on the issue.

Chair Atherton said they obviously did need another session. He added that if the system fee was raised, it should go across the base, and in that way the goal would be to pay down the debt.

4.  PARTNERSHIP PLAN FOR WASTE REDUCTION

Meg Lynch, Waste Reduction and Planning Supervisor, REM, discussed the Partnership Plan for Waste Reduction. She said it was a cooperative approach between Metro and the local governments to undertake a wide range of waste reduction activities. The plan covers 3 general areas: maintenance funding which supports the foundation of curb side single/multiple family and yard debris collection programs, competitive grants which fund special activities, and waste reduction initiatives such as commercial organics, commercial recycling in general, and construction/demolition debris.

She said the packet included an overview and detailed plans. (See this material in the agenda packet, which can be found with the permanent record of this meeting.) She said the next step was to take it to the next Solid Waste Advisory Committee (SWAC) as an agenda item on March 19^th to take comments and incorporate them with the public comments received to date. She said they would then write a resolution and staff report with the intent to bring it back to the committee on April 4^th.

Councilor McLain said she had always supported the program and continued to work with staff on what she saw as a major problem, which was basically the ability to evaluate where the money was working well and where it was not. She was uneasy about how far along the track the performance measures were. Her major concern was the budget and making sure they got their money’s worth. She wanted the resources aimed at the competitive program vs. the giving program.

Ms. Lynch said 27% of the funds went to the per capita distribution, 8% went outside regular programs, and 65% was devoted to waste reduction initiatives. She said that money was totally under their control and was not money distributed to local governments on a per capita basis.

Councilor McLain said the list of projects under the 65% were not just Metro projects.

Ms. Lynch said that was correct. She said money was being spent to develop outreach campaigns and to develop an organics market.

Presiding Officer Bragdon felt the performance measures was a timely point.

Ms. Lynch said money was built in to next year’s budget for evaluation.

Jennifer Ericksen, Waste Reduction and Planning, REM. explained where the organics money was being spent. She said of the nearly $700,000, some would go for educational materials and staffing concerns, but the majority of the funds were for competitive grants.

Councilor McLain said she would read the report and try to connect what she read with the budget. She still had questions and wanted to have the performance measures to show whether the money was working.

Mr. Petersen agreed. He said if they could not justify the $2 million, they should not get the appropriation for doing it. He welcomed the opportunity to do the evaluation.

John Houser, Senior Council Analyst, asked about the organic grants. He wondered if they would automatically carry an evaluation requirement with them.

Ms. Lynch believed they would, but said she would have to check on the content of individual grant programs. She said there were line items identified in the budget as evaluation efforts directly related to the 3 initiatives.

COUNCILOR COMMUNICATIONS

None.

There being no further business to come before the committee, the meeting was adjourned at 5:17 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Cheryl Grant

Council Assistant

ATTACHMENTS TO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR THE

SOLID WASTE & RECYCLING COMMITTEE

MEETING OF MARCH 7, 2001

Testimony Cards: None.