MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

SOLID WASTE & RECYCLING COMMITTEE MEETING

Wednesday, May 23, 2001

Council Chamber

Members Present:  Bill Atherton (Chair), Rod Monroe

Also present:    David Bragdon

Absent:    Susan McLain (Vice Chair) (excused)

Chair Atherton called the meeting to order at 3:33 p.m.

1.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE MAY 9, 2001 SOLID WASTE & RECYCLING COMMITTEE MEETING

2.  REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR’S BRIEFING

Terry Peterson, Director, Regional Environmental Management Department, reported that Metro has agreed to assist the DEQ in their efforts to actively promote the King County Industrial Materials Exchange (IMEX) within Oregon, and that Metro recycled latex paint has been named the preferred paint for the City of Portland. He updated the committee on the CSU Transport issue. (For more detail, see the copy of the Regional Environmental Management Director’s Updates attached to the permanent record of this meeting).

Chair Atherton wondered why Metro was involved in the IMEX partnership because the material was exchanged between industries.

Mr. Petersen responded that it would be waste if it was not exchanged, so this was a good waste prevention tool.

Chair Atherton asked if Metro had been in contact with any other county governments regarding the recycled latex paint.

Mr. Petersen said they had contacted the state, cities, counties, school districts, etc., to get the word out on the paint. He said they had not been extremely successful so far.

Councilor Monroe offered to co-sign a letter with the Chair to Jim Scherzinger, Finance Director for the Portland School District No. 1, to let him know about the paint. He added that Mr. Scherzinger was a dynamite financier with a strong environmental consciousness. He felt the letter should be sent as soon as possible because summer is when the school district does their painting and renovation

Chair Atherton agreed the letter was a good idea.

Councilor Monroe suggested follow up phone calls after the letter.

Mr. Petersen said he appreciated the offer and would follow up with the phone calls as well.

3.  ORDINANCE NO. 01-907, FOR THE PURPOSE OF AMENDING METRO CODE CHAPTER 5.02 TO MODIFY THE CHARGES FOR HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTE ACCEPTED AT METRO HAZARDOUS WASTE FACILITIES AND METRO HAZARDOUS WASTE COLLECTION EVENTS.

Chair Atherton opened a public hearing on Ordinance No. 01-907. No one came forward to testify so he closed the public hearing.

Scott Klag, REM Senior Solid Waste Planner, gave a presentation regarding the reasoning behind the Ordinance.

Councilor Monroe strongly supported the Ordinance.

Marv Fjordbeck, Senior Legal Counsel, noted a clerical error on page 7 where Section 2, Subsection (e) related to Subsection (c) when it should relate to Subsection (b) and (c).

Councilor Monroe accepted the change as part of his motion.

Chair Atherton assigned Councilor Monroe to carry Ordinance No. 01-907 to the full Council.

4.  STRATEGIC PLAN DISCUSSION (Research Related to the Strategic Plan)

Mr. Petersen reported on research the department had done regarding how outstanding revenue bonds might or might not put restraints on Metro’s ability to sell the transfer stations. (For more detail, see copy of Transfer Station Bonds included with the permanent record of this meeting).

Chair Atherton asked about exchanging the transfer stations for landfills.

Mr. Petersen did not know if there were restrictions on the revenue from the sale of the property. He said selling the transfer stations would not terminate the disposal contract with Waste Management so those obligations would have to be considered if they sold the transfer stations. He felt that would significantly devalue the property.

Councilor Monroe concurred with Mr. Petersen’s conclusions and commented that not everything they did with solid waste was market driven. He felt there was a collective regional social consciousness to more efficiently deal with the waste.

Chair Atherton suggested selling the transfer stations and using the money on endpoint disposal, like trash burners, landfills, or hazardous waste processing facilities might be a reasonable strategic direction to take, especially given the status of flow control concerns. He recognized that the Waste Management contract could be problematic to that plan.

Mr. Petersen said Metro’s role in the solid waste system was such a big issue that he was looking for direction from the committee to start to shape the strategies in more detail.

Chair Atherton’s immediate assessment mirrored Councilor Monroe’s, that the big problem was the Waste Management contract.

Councilor Monroe said something else they had talked about in the past was the regional systems fee that is currently subsidized. He asked Mr. Petersen if there would be recommendations brought forward to increase the fee.

Mr. Petersen responded that Chair Atherton was calling a meeting of the rate review committee in June to begin that discussion. He added that Mr. Chaimov’s presentation would address the system fee question. Mr. Petersen hoped for direction from this committee before the Rate Review committee met.

Councilor Bragdon commented that hazardous waste did play into it because there were certain things government did because the private market would not and society wanted them to be done. He felt the contractual obligations of the agency were a major issue. He asked if the same obligations held under the transportation contract.

Mr. Petersen responded that there was different flow guarantee language in the transport contract vs the disposal contract. He said Metro was clearly obligated to send 90% of the waste that goes through a general purpose landfill to Waste Management and that kind of obligation was not in the CSU contract.

Tom Chaimov, REM Senior Management Analyst, gave a PowerPoint presentation regarding solid waste cost allocations. (For more detail, see the hard copy of the Solid Waste Cost Allocations presentation attached to the permanent record of this meeting).

Councilor Monroe asked if shifting the cost of disposal services to the regional transfer fee would allow them to keep the $62.50 tip fee longer.

Mr. Petersen said yes, any costs moved into the regional systems fee that were paid both at Metro and non-Metro, would mean that tip fee would not have to go up as fast as it would otherwise. He said Mr. Chaimov’s references to disposal fees related only to Metro facilities.

Chair Atherton asked if that was independent of our current operating practice of buying down the designated fund balance.

Mr. Chaimov responded that the numbers he was using in this presentation were relative to the unit cost of doing business, not the current $62.50 fee. He reiterated that moving the costs from the transfer stations customers to spread them across all the customers in the region, it made Metro less vulnerable to tonnage losses at the transfer stations and reduced the total unit cost.

Mr. Petersen added that the current system fee was $12.90 and if the costs were fully allocated to that fee, it would be more than $16.00 per ton using the current allocation methodology. He said the per-ton impact on recycling would be about 75¢. He felt the operators of the recovery facilities would report a big impact on their operation if you eliminated it without a corresponding increase in the Metro tip fee. If the credit program was phased out as the tip fee went up, that would be different. He said they would be prepared to answer all of the questions at the Rate Review committee in June.

Councilor Monroe said in 1997 there had some been major changes to cut the tip fee and make a policy of buying down the designated fund balance. He said they were now rethinking those decisions to determine whether it was best to stay that course for the long run, or if it was time to adjust it. He was tending toward the latter.

Chair Atherton repeated that the Rate Review committee would meet in late June to rethink that as a first strategy.

ADJOURN

There being no further business to come before the committee, Chair Atherton adjourned the meeting at 4:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Cheryl Grant

Council Assistant

ATTACHMENTS TO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR THE

SOLID WASTE & RECYCLING COMMITTEE

MEETING OF MAY 23, 2001

Testimony Cards: None.