MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

SOLID WASTE & RECYCLING COMMITTEE MEETING

Wednesday, March 21, 2001

Council Chamber

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

Also present:    

Absent:    

Chair Atherton called the meeting to order at 3:39 p.m.

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

2.  REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR’S BRIEFING

Terry Peterson, Director, Regional Environmental Management Department, had no written updates for this meeting. He introduced Jim Watkins, REM Engineering and Analysis Manager, who introduced Craig Lyons and Gary Bennett, newly hired hazardous waste technicians who will be working the haz-waste roundups for the next 35 weekends, and will also work in the facilities during the week.

3.  Resolution No. 01-3042, For the Purpose of Authorizing the Executive Officer to

 Grant a Metro Solid Waste Facility License to Pacific Land Clearing and Recycling

 Center II.

Roy Brower, Regulatory Affairs Administrator, showed a PowerPoint presentation, which included information on all of the facilities applying for a license today. He reported that three were new facilities and one was a change in authorization/ownership of an existing licensed facility. (The information presented is included in the agenda packet found with the permanent record of this meeting.)

Councilor Monroe asked about the Pacific Land Clearing and Recycling Center II being located in the Johnson Creek floodplain. He commented that there had been a lot done to mitigate the flooding on the creek, which seemed to be working as there had not been any flooding over Foster Rd. for the last couple of years. He wanted to be sure the recycling center would be compatible with the mitigation work already done.

Jack Botkin, Pacific Land Clearing and Recycling Center II, 16020 S Park Place Ct., Oregon City, said it did sit in the floodplain and had been underwater during the 1996 flood.

Mr. Brower said they were working on a financial arrangement with Mr. Botkin in case future cleanup was needed at the site.

Mr. Botkin added that he did not foresee any difficulties as it would be a reloading facility and not a storage/holding facility. He said the material would move off the property as quickly as it moved in. In response to a question from Councilor Monroe Mr. Botkin said the ground up material was primarily used for light duty road purposes, but some landscaping companies were interested in it as well. He said the wood products and the mixed roofing waste ground together in a proper mix were basically going to hog fuel.

Mr. Brower described Mr. Botkin’s second facility, a new one located at 6400 SE 101^st Ave., Portland. He said the license would be for the same authorizations as the first facility but there would be a 500-ton storage limit on this facility. He added that Oregon City had some concerns about it being located in a floodplain as well, so they wanted no more than a 48 hour stockpile onsite at any time so it could be easily and quickly removed if necessary.

Councilor Monroe asked about the fee at his facilities and the percentage of the material he took in that ended up as residual in the land fill.

Mr. Botkin responded that he charges $55/ton, which is lower than the landfill tip fee, and that there was zero residual going into the landfill from his operation.

Mr. Brower introduced Dennis Brown, operator of Roofgone, 9645 N. Columbia Blvd., Portland, and presented information regarding his facility. He pointed out that Mr. Brown had been in operation since 1999 on Suttle Rd. and moved to the Columbia Blvd. site in 2000 where he has been working with Metro since last year to get a license. This facility takes roofing material and clean wood for hog fuel, but not yard debris. He said there is a 10,000-ton storage limit at this facility and some recommended clean-up requirements for the Suttle Rd. site as well as a financial assurance regarding any future clean-up for Columbia Blvd. He added that DEQ will be issuing a permit to this facility as well.

Councilor Monroe asked Mr. Brown’s fees at his facility.

Mr. Brown responded that he charges $40 per ton and had since the beginning. He estimated less than 1% residual going into the landfill at this time. He said their goal is 100% recycling.

Mr. Brower introduced Casey Stroupe, new owner of American Compost and Recycling, 20200 SW Stafford Rd., Tualatin. This is an existing facility which had an “old style” franchise and is now applying for a license and new authorization. He is located right next door to Roofgone and also owns Clackamas Compost and S & H Logging. He has a good track record in the region. He will be authorized for yard debris and clean wood for hog fuel. They also do composting on-site.

Councilor Monroe asked about any odor problem regarding composting yard debris.

Mr. Stroupe said there had been no complaints from neighbors regarding an odor problem. He said he keeps the piles turned frequently and was aware it could cause a problem if they did not take care of them.

Councilor Monroe asked how much he charged.

Mr. Stroupe said he charges a little differently than the others, about $6 a cubic yard . He added that normal yard debris coming to him in a pickup truck was approximately 1000 pounds.

Chair Atherton asked if the license fees covered the full cost of the licensing process.

Mr. Brower said the fee was $300 and it did not cover the full cost.

Councilor McLain asked how much of the actual roofing waste roofing and yard debris would not be diverted from these facilities.

Mr. Brower said they were not sure because there was no ceiling other than a limitation on how much could be stored. He said it had varied from a couple thousand tons per year to 6-7000 tons a year. He said it may go up from there.

Councilor McLain said an issue with neighbors in the past had been the size of the facility. She asked if he had an idea of this facility’s size, now or in the future.

Mr. Brower said that was something they were concerned about as well. He added that it was important to have Metro authority to do the periodic inspections that were part of the license requirements, as were written operations plans from the licensee, and to make sure there were regulatory mechanisms in place to address those kinds of issues.

Councilor McLain asked if he would guarantee to the committee that they would take into consideration the facility’s size and other impacts to neighorhoods.

Mr. Brower said his department tracks complaints and works with the operators on any they receive. He added that part of the license requirement was that the operator had to keep track of the complaints and address them to Metro’s satisfaction.

Mr. Botkin said he could only speak for his facilities, but said they were located in heavy industrial settings so there was no impact to neighborhoods.

Councilor McLain said since zoning sometimes gets changed over the years, it was the “community neighborhood” that was of concern and not immediate neighborhood.

Mr. Botkin said that had been addressed as well and he had letters from the City of Oregon City and the owners of the development assuring that situation would not come up later.

Councilor McLain was comfortable with staff’s indication that they could work through the site management plan to address problems if circumstances changed.

Chair Atherton assigned Councilor Monroe to carry the resolution to the full Council.

4.  Resolution No. 01-3043, For the Purpose of Authorizing the Executive Officer to

 Grant a Metro Solid Waste Facility License to American Compost and Recycling,

 L.L.C.

Chair Atherton assigned Councilor McLain to carry the resolution to the full Council.

5.  Resolution No. 01-3044, For the Purpose of Authorizing the Executive Officer to

 Grant a Metro Solid Waste Facility License to Pacific Land Clearing and Recycling

 Center I.

Chair Atherton assigned Councilor Monroe to carry the resolution to the full Council.

6.  Resolution No. 01-3045, For the Purpose of Authorizing the Executive Officer to

 Grant a Metro Solid Waste Facility License to Roofgone.

Chair Atherton assigned Councilor McLain to carry the resolution to the full Council.

Councilor Monroe appreciated the fact that small business owners like these applicants helped the region to meet recycling goals. He was pleased to be able to license the facilities today because it meant a better chance for them to fit into the program and assured the public that the facilities were operating for the overall good of the region.

Councilor McLain added that the new licenses addressed two sticky parts of our waste stream, yard debris and roofing. She asked if they had given any thought to some other recycling challenges, tires and some other elements like plastic. She congratulated the applicants for what they do.

Chair Atherton said the presentation was well worth the time and he appreciated it.

7.  Strategic Plan Discussion

Terry Petersen said there had been a number of questions from the committee about the solid waste revenue system. He introduced Tom Chaimov to give an overview of the system, the two types of fees collected, and how the costs are allocated to those fees. He introduced Janet Matthews to present the status of the overall strategic plan. He asked for specific feedback from the committee on the goals of the solid waste system.

Chair Atherton agreed it was a good idea to have a discussion and come to closure on the goals.

Tom Chaimov explained cost allocation, regional system fees, and how Metro sets its tip fee. He presented a group of slides to help explain. (See hard copy of slide presentation included with the permanent record of this meeting.) His key message was that Metro’s solid waste rate setting structure is fundamentally sound and calculating the per-ton unit cost of doing business is straight forward. He said the complexity arose when policy objectives other than charging unit cost were considered.

Chair Atherton reiterated that the cost of administering the licenses just granted were not fully covered through the license fee. He asked the true cost of service.

Mr. Petersen said the regulatory affairs program was a half-million dollar program. Those costs are included in the regional programs and regulatory affairs. The costs are allocated to the regional systems fee and paid for by all waste in the region, but not individual facilities. Because they have no residual at those facilities, they pay nothing into the regional system fees.

Councilor Monroe felt they would add some stability to a volatile system if they raised the regional systems fee to reflect at least the true cost. He thought that was a change they should consider.

Mr. Petersen agreed with Councilor Monroe that they needed to fully allocate the costs back to the regional systems fee at some time in the future. He said the disposal savings that were being used to fund regional programs and the undesignated fund balance would run out. At that time, he hoped to get back to a more rational allocation system.

Councilor Monroe asked if it was possible to increase the regional systems fee to $15 without increasing the tip fee of $62.50.

Mr. Petersen thought they could absorb that kind of increase for a year or two, but would have to raise it down the road. That would slow down the draw down of the undesignated fund balance. He said that was a trade off of whether you wanted to draw down the undesignated fund balance or make the fee system more equitable.

Councilor Monroe said he was interested in adding stability. He said he knew there would continue to be considerable pressure to franchise additional privately owned transfer stations that would take waste away from Metro’s. he said it seemed that kind of change would add stability overall.

Councilor McLain said it always went back to the goal of the regional system. She said another element the Council had been working toward over the years was that part of the regional system goal was to continue to increase the recycling rate. She said if the programs and the regional systems fee were not adequate for that, there was a goal there to deal with whether they truly wanted to reach a 52% level at some given date. She said they would need to talk about whether their goals were realistic or responsible to the public.

Chair Atherton felt they may be missing the discussion of the recycling credit concept.

Councilor McLain said that went along with what she was saying because some industry didn’t get or didn’t use the credit. She said maybe they should be spending those dollars somewhere else.

Councilor Monroe said one of the reasons the recyclers were able to work was because the tip fee was relatively high right now. He said there were a lot of products not currently being recycled because there hadn’t been an economical market developed yet. He said Metro could encourage that by grants for developing markets, or subsidies for recycling. He said keeping the tip fee higher than it needs to be would give an economic cushion that would drive the engine of entrepreneurial recycling.

Chair Atherton commented that the operators today were not getting taxed at all and did not get recycling credits. He said that system is working.

Councilor McLain said you would have to look at who is paying for the system and for the ability to have a subsidy. She felt they should review that also. She said there was a difference between licensed facilities and franchised facilities and the kinds of facilities that are allowed to take certain kinds of waste/recyclables.

Chair Atherton said Councilor Monroe had raised the interesting concept of taxing the bads to encourage recycling.

Janet Matthews, REM Policy and Program Manager, presented the purpose and scope of the REM strategic planning process, an overview of the process, and a summary of what they had been through in two phases out of four so far. (See hard copy of the presentation included with the permanent record of this meeting.) She said they anticipated having a plan by July of this year, to be followed by an implementation plan by February 2002. She concluded that staff had heard the committee’s concerns and would continue to meet with councilors to get their thoughts on the process and goals.

Councilor Monroe said they all faced concerns about court challenges on flow control and what happens to the economic system if the challenges were successful. He said increasing the regional systems fee and reducing other costs at the transfer stations might be a way to mitigate the results of court decisions on flow control.

Mr. Petersen said the less sensitive Metro could be to where the tonnage went, the more financial stability there would be to the Metro revenue system. He thought how to assure stability and spread the costs throughout the region was a great strategy to work on.

Councilor Monroe said he would prefer to see the regional systems fee a little higher than the actual cost and have it be a greater share of the total revenue.

Chair Atherton asked if would then still be possible to collect a fee for outside the system, assuming that the flow control issue did not throw a curve into the plan.

Marv Fjordbeck, Office of General Counsel, said yes, that would be possible.

Councilor McLain agreed that a fair and stable system was the ultimate goal. She believed they should make a commitment to get to a decision on what the vision goal or system vision was to be and carry it to the rest of the Council for buy-in. She felt they should start with reaffirming some of the key goals in the Regional Solid Waste Management Plan (RSWMP), i.e. service provision, regulation and waste reduction. She added that transfer station ownership could be discussed as it related to the goals. She said the Chair’s flowchart was an excellent tool to bring together some issues to make a simplified program and a simplified approach. She said a decision on how to deal with public participation this time was also needed to address questions that were specifically set out by Metro.

Chair Atherton said Ms. Matthews was asking very specific questions about ownership of transfer stations. He noted Councilor Monroe’s question about the system fee and the stability of our system. He said some of the facilities and rates questions had to be resolved.

Councilor McLain said the mission/vision was the next and the goals had to be agreed on in committee before Ms. Matthews can go forward.

John Houser, Senior Council Analyst, said they may need to look at the question of whether to own transfer stations and continue to be an active player in the marketplace or to have more of a regulatory role. He added that the question of ownership of transfer stations may have a logical answer after that decision was made.

Chair Atherton said whether they owned a transfer station could reasonably fit into the regulatory role. He felt they were not mutually exclusive.

Chair Atherton said at the next meeting on April 4^th, they would discuss the issues of the goals and ask some key questions about the RSWMP.

ADJOURN

There being no further business to come before the committee, Chair Atherton adjourned the meeting at 5:15 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Cheryl Grant

Council Assistant

ATTACHMENTS TO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR THE

SOLID WASTE & RECYCLING COMMITTEE

MEETING OF MARCH 21, 2001

Testimony Cards: None.