Orcas Recycling Services Ready to Sign on the Dotted Line

By Margie Doyle

Orcas Recycling Services (ORS/The Exchange) and San Juan County are poised to sign off on the contract to assume management of the Orcas Transfer Station for solid waste disposal.

The Exchange Phoenix rises as the first order of business, the Orcas Transfer Station contract, nears completion. Operations of the Transfer Station Site are expected to be transferred from the County to Orcas Recycling Services (ORS) next month.

This was the proud announcement by ORS Interim Director Pete Moe on July 15. The draft contract, proposed after negotiations with the County’s Public Works Director Frank Mulcahy and the Solid Waste Program Administrator Sam Gibboney, is set to come before the County Council by the end of next week “at the latest,” says Gibboney.

Assuming the Council moves the contract forward from this “second touch,”  the clock will start ticking towards public hearings soon after. Moe expects that ORS will assume operations of the three-lot transfer site in mid-August. (The County is retaining control of the northeast parcel of the site, Lot C; although ORS may lease parts of Lot C).

“The heart and soul of ORS is recycling,” Moe says. “That vision is what got us going, to seek management of the Orcas Transfer Station. When we were selected by the Council it was a big, exciting moment for us.

“Then we found out what we had to do [to secure the contract in negotiations]. The process has been an incredible amount of work, for the board and for Mark DeTray,” he adds. DeTray, who was director of The Exchange, is on a leave of absence for health reasons. In addition to Moe, the ORS board is made up of:

• Michael Greenberg
• Ian Harlow
• Jared Lovejoy
• Susan Malins

Moe also is grateful that Sam Gibboney and Frank Mulcahy,  have made the effort to think outside the box and consider a new model for handling “trash.” He adds that the contributions of bookkeeper Minnie Tuck, and ORS’ ongoing community funders have been invaluable.

With that team, and with consultants and lawyers, ORS has created official documents for:

• Operations Plan
• Safety Plan
• Emergency Response Plan
• Capital Improvement Plan
• Site Maps

They figured out a pricing structure, and worked with the County Health Department and State Department of Ecology. They have also cleaned up the Exchange as a business, including paying some back taxes.

Getting trash of the island has been the Board’s focus—not just re-building the Exchange, says Moe. “The first order of business is getting garbage off the island. There’s no money, nothing can happen, until garbage disposal is taken care of.”

Orcas Freight will be handling all off-island trucking of waste and recycling, most of which will go to facilities on Best Road, between Anacortes and Burlington.

Sam Gibboney confirms that San Juan County is satisfied with ORS’ documentation and reporting for the County/ORS contract.  She agrees with Pete Moe that the ORS board has negotiated with the county to handle a million details — “If not more! Particularly in the last six weeks, we’ve both negotiated and worked well together in preparation for ORS to take over operations.”

Moe addresses the “heart” of the ORS ‘ mission, The Exchange: “Without The Exchange, people are sad; without garbage disposal, people get angry.

“ So I don’t see us getting a new [Exchange] building for at least a year,” he says. Currently, the County won’t allow a temporary buildings on the site. But he’s encouraged that, while the non-profit ORS board has been buried in the contract commitments for the transfer station, “The public side of it took on a life of its own.”

Moe refers to “The Exchange Re-design” community workshops facilitated by retired architect and Eastsound Planning Review Committee member Fred Klein. Along with Klein, Moe praises David Kau, Chuck Greening and Larry Coddington for their contributions to the workshops.

Moe who was approached by The Exchange founder, George Post, to serve on the Exchange board about seven years ago, has also served on the County’s Solid Waste Advisory Committee (SWAC).

Although he admits to being worn out by the ORS contract process, Moe and the ORS Board have further visions for the possibilities of ORS/The Exchange. Among them:

• Designing a redundant renewable energy stems at the site, that sells energy back to OPALCO, “so that we’re always creating energy on way or another;”
• Educating high school students “to follow the waste stream” with field trips to the eastern Oregon solid waste vaults and to the recycling centers in eastern King County, where mechanical sorters differentiate between commingled recyclables;
• Creating a model for 21st century recycling rather than waste.

Moe says,  “The public is taking over something that’s been the realm of massive corporations.”

He continues as Director of the Funhouse Commons, an Orcas Island non-profit, while he functions as the interim director and President of the board of ORS.

ORS plans to “cast a broad net for a new director: someone who has engineering experience and who wants to do something revolutionary.”

The ORS non-profit is also looking for a permanent operations manager at the transfer station. In the interim, Errol Speed, whom Moe credits as “essential to the transfer station process,” will be overseeing operations.