MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

SOLID WASTE & RECYCLING COMMITTEE MEETING

Wednesday, October 2, 2002

Council Chamber

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

Absent:    David Bragdon (excused), Rod Park (excused)

Chair Atherton called the meeting to order at 3:35 p.m.

1.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE SEPTEMBER 18, 2002 SOLID WASTE & RECYCLING COMMITTEE MEETING.

2.  REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR’S BRIEFING

None.

3.  RESOLUTION NO. 02-3224, FOR THE PURPOSE OF AUTHORIZING THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER TO RENEW A METRO SOLID WASTE FACILITY LICENSE TO K.B. RECYCLING, INC., FOR THE OPERATION OF A MATERIAL RECOVERY FACILITY

Terry Petersen, Manager, Regional Environmental Management, reviewed the resolution and explained that the issue of the language in the Metro license regarding the authorization of what waste types would be allowed and whether or not it was consistent with language in the Clackamas County land use permit had been clarified and resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Councilor Monroe thanked Mr. Donovan and Mr. Kahut for their patience, as did Chair Atherton and Dr. Petersen.

Chair Atherton will carry the resolution to the full council.

4.  OCTOBER LOCAL TRANSFER STATION SERVICE AREA REPORT: PRELIMINARY INFORMATION

Dr. Petersen previewed the performance report for local transfer station regulations adopted by council in October 2001. His main observation was that changes made in transfer station capacity over the past 5-10 years has gone a long way to meeting the need. He reported there was quite a bit more transfer capacity now than there was 5 years ago. He said he has not received any complaints from any independent haulers about access to transfer stations or transfer station capacity at existing facilities. He felt there were other issues, i.e. how to meet recovery goals, which were higher priority than transfer stations. He added that there were things that needed to be improved and/or modified, but the issues are very different now than a year ago.

He said in the past year there had been more recovery from waste diverted from landfills to recovery facilities. He reported cases where independent haulers had been able to go to a closer facility and reduce their vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) because of the changes that were made last year, but also cases where the waste had gone further distances because the caps were lifted. He noted that some vertically integrated companies that owned transfer stations and collected waste from outside the service area had driven more miles to get back to their own station.

He remarked that the tonnage caps at the facility in Wilsonville appeared to be adequate based on the amount of waste being received there. He said the caps at Recycle America and Pride are less than the amount of waste within those service areas, but it is important to keep in mind that the bulk of that waste, is either controlled by other vertically integrated companies and not likely to go to those local transfer stations, or it is waste that has been granted non-system licenses for hauling out of region, or it is waste controlled by independent haulers that have not expressed an interest in going to one of the existing facilities. He concluded that if the owners of Recycle America and Pride were interested in having their caps increased, it should be up to them to come to the council to demonstrate a need. Councilor McLain commented that VMTs and tonnage cap issues were closely tied. She said service areas do not reflect ownership of vertical companies and that is an issue that should be addressed in the report. Dr. Petersen agreed. He said with regard to tonnage caps, not only the amount of waste generated in those service areas should be considered, but also ownership patterns and other factors. He suggested at some future point, the council may want to include criteria to consider when setting tonnage caps in the Code. He thought the council had, in fact, considered other than just waste in service areas in their October 2001 decision. Councilor Monroe suggested that the report include ongoing issues such as requiring all dry waste to go through a material recovery facility (MRF), caps at the Forest Grove transfer station, and the recycling credit paid to MRFs. He said he shared Councilor McLain’s concerns about maintaining the economic vitality of Metro Central and Metro South and also wanted to have the decision to accept hazardous waste at Metro South without a fee to be addressed in the report, i.e., could they see that that decision was making any difference.

Dr. Petersen continued with the report preview: he said they were currently administering the franchise tonnage limitations without counting out of district waste as there was not an explicit exemption for out of district waste. He suggested that if that was not the direction council wanted to go, they might want to consider modifying the Code to clarify. Councilor McLain said she would need more information to respond to that question, and assumed the report would lay out background as well as pros and cons of that.

Dr. Petersen said perhaps the most interesting recommendation, which he credited to Lee Barrett, Waste Reduction and Outreach Manager, was the idea of encouraging the private sector to set up systems for recovering things like food waste and sending it on to a composting facility rather than to a landfill, which would free up space under the wet waste cap for mixed wet garbage. He suggested they might want to send the idea to the advisory committee to see if the incentive would be there. Dr. Petersen said it was looking more and more like a composting operation distant from this region was going to be the solution to our goal of getting more organics recovery. He said there would likely to be some type of transfer operation and consolidation of the food waste. He said they were looking very closely at a new dairy in Boardman, which, as part of their operation may be able to mix some of our region’s food waste into their manure compost and backhaul the compost to the Metro region.

Dr. Petersen reported other findings he found interesting, i.e. they found that the three major waste companies in the region controlled 46% of the collected waste compared to 9% in 1994. He said that trend had continued during the past year. He said the financial impact on Metro of raising the tonnage caps last year had been estimated increase about $1.20 in unit cost as waste was lost, but in fact it turned out to be slightly less than anticipated, about $1. He explained that there could be a difference in the databases and models used to anticipate the amount of wet waste in the region. Metro’s estimate was about 18% higher than the facilities’, which could be caused by our database and model being off, or the facilities underreporting wet waste, or a combination of the two. He said that was something that had come out of the research that he would follow up on and report back.

Councilor McLain asked to include any connection between Metro’s business grants and changes of business at our transfer stations. She was also interested in hearing about enforcement issues, as some industry folks had told her that Metro was basically just scratching the surface as far as enforcement issues being caught and dealt with.

Chair Atherton was concerned that local jurisdictions have the information they needed when they negotiated their franchise agreements with haulers to get the best arrangement for their ratepayers. Dr. Petersen replied that making sure whatever savings ratepayers get back is largely dependent on the collection rates that local governments set. He said the discussion of last year had raised the visibility of this issue with the local governments. He said he would make sure they had all of the information they needed.

ADJOURN

There being no further business to come before the Solid Waste & Recycling Committee, Chair Atherton adjourned the meeting at 4:08 p.m.

Prepared by

Cheryl Grant

Council Assistant

Attachments to the Public Record for the

Solid Waste & Recycling Committee Meeting of October 2, 2002

None.

Testimony Cards: None.