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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSWAG minutes 052313Quick Report FROM: Name of Advisory Board: Solid Waste Advisory Board SUBJECT: Monthly Meeting DATE: May 23, 2013 LOCATION: Sold Waste Administration Building 1207 Eubanks Road Chapel Hill ______________________________________________________________________ MEMBERS PRESENT: Jan Sassaman, Chair & Chapel Hill Rep., Remus Smith, Hillsborough Liaison, BJ Tipton UNC liaison MEMBERS ABSENT: Jim Ward, Chapel Hill Rep. and Town Council Member, . STAFF PRESENT: Gayle Wilson, Blair Pollock, Wanda McCain, and Wendy Simmons, Chapel Hill Sanitation Services Director VACANCIES: Carrboro (2), Hillsborough (1) and Orange County (2) _____________________________________________________________________ Beginning time of meeting: 7pm March 23, 2013 Old Business: None New Business: Wilson honors members of solid waste advisory board with a brief encomium. Approved April 23rd 2013 minutes 3-0. Wilson discussed County Recycling Alternative Financing: There will be no 3-R Fee billed for urban curbside, rural curbside or multifamily. Those programs will be funded from Enterprise fund reserves. The basic programs including drop-off, electronics, hazardous waste, education and some commercial collection programs will continue to be funded by the basic fee that is proposed to increase $10 per unit from $37 to $47. A doubling of the solid waste convenience center fees from $20 to $40 for rural, $10 to $20 for urban and $2 to $4 for multifamily is proposed to finance convenience center operations and improvements. No capital equipment is recommended for solid waste for next fiscal year. A draft resolution from the April 23rd BOCC meeting outlining the intent of the future directions for solid waste and recycling was presented. The minutes have not been approved by the BOCC yet. Wilson further discussed FY 13/14 budget issues and explained that all recycling-related function at landfill will be funded from recycling. Only C&D disposal will be funded from tipping fees. The fund will lose about $2.5 million and only a little over $1 million will saved from positions eliminated, operational decreases and surplus equipment sales. There is $3.2 million for closing and capping the current MSW landfill. Hours will be adjusted at landfill as follows: Weekdays 7am to 3pm. (was 4pm); Saturday 8am to noon (was 7:30am). Eubanks and Walnut Grove are proposed to be opened Thursdays beginning in September. The planning and design of Eubanks Road Convenience Center improvements are underway and construction is hoped for some time in FY 14-15. But there are concerns about the Town of Chapel Hill development process. 2 A discussion took place of the plans of Chapel Hill with Carrboro and Hillsborough to proceed with issuance of an RFP for curbside and other recycling services and how that process might affect the current integrated recycling program between the County and the Towns. Staff feels confident that current County collection and processing efficiencies will be confirmed by the process. Programs & Services Update Walnut Grove Road expanded site re-opening has gone smoothly and the staff are learning how to operate the site as the public learns how to use it. May 30 will be a Solid Waste Forum at the Chapel Hill Public Library hosted by Chapel Hill Sustainability Committee and Orange County Commission on the Environment. 6pm – 8:30pm All present at the SWAB meeting except Remus Smith are featured speakers. A discussion of Pay As You Throw updated the group on past efforts to consider PAYT for each of the Towns and the County and how that had not been implemented but studied and considered several times. There was a general consensus that waste disposed per household was already generally low in Orange County and it might be wiser to first implement curbside recycling roll carts and see how much that further reduced waste before considering PAYT which is more complex and politically challenging. It was also noted the a company in the area had been aggressively marketing PAYT to various local elected officials although they had the information on how low disposal amounts already were and how their marketing efforts had not made for fruitful discussions of the current set of problems confronting local recycling programs. Board Member Comments: Jan Sassaman gave closing remarks about the SWAB, presented a letter of resignation from SWAB he distributed to local elected officials recommending that there be some sort of forum in the future to continue public input on solid waste issues and acknowledging that the June 30 closing of the landfill will apparently coincide with the dissolution of the current interlocal agreement and the SWAB itself. He noted that this would be the final SWAB meeting unless he was directed otherwise by elected officials. Pollock presented the SWAB with a celebratory cake Adjourned: 8:10pm.