Is the Orcas Transfer Station a “time bomb” or a “resource”?
That’s the question that defined the perspective of the main speakers at a public meeting on Friday, July 27 to answer questions regarding Orcas Recycle Services (ORS)/The Exchange proposal to the County for management of the Orcas Transfer Station.
Mark DeTray, Manager of the Exchange and Pete Moe, Chair of the ORS/The Exchange Board of Directors, presented charts and graphics at the Friday evening meeting and discussed the proposal they submitted to the Council on July 13 for operation of the Orcas transfer station. Cimarron Enterprises was the only other entity that submitted a proposal, which included an agreement with San Juan Sanitation Company to haul island garbage at a rate of $154/ton tipping fees. (The proposed rate does not include county excise tax, currently 10%, nor the state refuse tax of 3.6%. In addition, Cimarron has offered a 3% rebate on gross profits to the County).
The Orcas transfer station, located on county property – as is the Exchange recycling center – is the only operating transfer station in the county. In its entirety, it takes up six parcels and has shown a gross income of $2,000,000 in recent years, Moe has said previously.
The County is in the process of privatizing operations and extracting itself from the solid waste disposal and recycling business. It is negotiating for separate operations on Lopez, Orcas and San Juan Islands.
Though San Juan Sanitation, a private business, did not submit a proposal for management of the Orcas Transfer Station, the garbage-hauling business is a key player in the process. San Juan Sanitation has been hauling San Juan Island waste to the Orcas transfer station since the San Juan transfer site was closed a year ago, and has been collecting solid waste on Orcas, and is scheduled to begin “curbside” pickup for those islanders who choose not to haul their own waste to the transfer station.
DeTray and Moe explained that the cash flow obtained from operating the transfer station will allow ORS to develop yard waste recycling, construction waste recycling, and other recycling operations. By developing organic waste processes alone, it is estimated that Orcas waste shipping to the mainland would decrease by 12 percent, DeTray said.
Sadie Bailey, a landscape gardener, brought up that currently islanders pay to “dump” organic waste that is then hauled off the island, and pay again when it is returned to the island as compost soil.
Dan Liedecker, co-owner of San Juan Sanitation Company which operates on all ferry-served islands, told the group on Friday, July 27 that SJ Sanitation had signed an agreement with Cimarron to haul route-collected waste to the Orcas transfer station at the rate of $154/ton , far below what the county currently charges.
Leidecker said that his garbage and recycling business on Gravel Pit Road on Orcas Island had been denied a transfer operation permit in 1994 “because the County said, ‘It’s our responsibility.’ I sued, but the Superior Court [prevailed] and put the County in the garbage business.
“This is big business. The big guys play this game,” Leidecker said. He warned the assembly, “The site is an environmental time bomb.
“As rookies, I’m telling you, you can’t do it. The $2,000,000 gross [in operating the transfer station] is deceiving. Cimarron has high-priced engineers and environmental planners… I wouldn’t venture into that.”
“The Exchange is a big part of the problem,” Leidecker said. “I wouldn’t continue to operate the Exchange on that site.”
Leidecker described SJ Sanitation’s 20-year relationship with Cimarron (which sub-contracts to Waste Management, the international solid-waste and recycling company that currently operates the recycling center in Woodinville and solid waste site in Eastern Oregon where Orcas waste is hauled). Leidecker said SJ Sanitation had “signed a letter of intent with Cimarron that gives five years to demonstrate they can keep the rates” [at their proposed levels].
Leidecker said SJ Sanitation is regulated as a utility by Washington state which sets “a 7% earnings cap before taxes.”
Now, Leidecker said, San Juan Sanitation will “certainly talk with [ORS]. But I have three options: to go with the new management, to activate my transfer station; or to go to the mainland.”
Michael Aley, Orcas Island Freight Lines owner, said that Orcas Freight has licenses for hauling trash, though it is not currently in that business. If San Juan Sanitation were to withdraw from serving the Orcas transfer station, Aley said, “that would open it up to other competitors.”
Moe and DeTray repeated that, under their proposal, ORS would retain the two county employees who have over 20 years’ experience working at the Orcas transfer station. ORS has budgeted $10,000 in insurance costs per year, well over what it was quoted by the insurance provider. “Regulatory agencies have not expressed great concern about the sites,” they countered Leidecker’s assertion that the tipping site is “an environmental time bomb.”
Moe pointed out that environmental liability rests with the County because it holds the lease on the land, which will cost the managing entity (whether Cimarron or ORS), $7,000 per year.
Bern Shank, Deer Harbor resident who was formerly Director of Portland Metro, a five-county solid waste management agency, and professor in the Environmental Department at UC/Davis, said, “In my experience, [both government and private businesses] want the waste to make money: the simplest solution is to take it to landfills,” which he described as “waste tombs.”
“Yes, it’s simpler and appears to be cheaper to ship solid waste elsewhere, but these are resources. The Exchange can involve hundreds of people instead of shipping waste off to landfills,” said Shank. ” The ORS proposal, he said, could “keep expertise on the site and control in the local economy.”
The Friday night meeting was called following a successful campaign by Orcas Islanders to delay a decision on awarding the contract, which the County Council had been scheduled to approve on Tuesday, July 24, following the recommendation of the Vendor Selection Committee. That recommendation, issued on July 20, was in favor of awarding the contract to Cimarron.
Council members and the Vendor Selection Committee are in the process of formulating questions to both Cimarron and ORS to further explain their proposals. (There will be a public meeting of the Vendor Selection Committee on Monday, July 30 at 3:30 p.m. in the Orcas Public Library).
The Council should give the Exchange a two year trial contract. We would rather have local control as much as possible. Even if the Exchange proposal would cost a little more I would be in favor of it. If after two years the Exchange is not handling the job adequately other actions could be taken. The fact that the Council is promoting Cimarron shows how out of touch with the public they are.
Some clarifications:
1) San Juan Sanitation pays the County excise and state refuse tax directly. As such, the $154 that would be paid by SJS for tipping garbage at the Orcas Island Transfer Station includes all taxes.
In contrast, the tip fee of $280 that Cimarron would charge for self-haul (and that was cited in a previous article in Orcas Issues) does not include all taxes; with taxes and fees, the self-haul rate proposed by Cimarron would be $315 or $335 (depending on whether or not they are given use of the Z-wall, where the commingled recycling is currently collected).
2) While food waste accounts for roughly 12% of garbage by weight; combined with yard waste, the total percentage by weight is as much as 23% — if we can capture these fractions of the waste stream for local use (perhaps 870 tons/year), that’s a big reduction in garbage and a significant benefit to our local gardens and farms.
Some clarifications (cont. from above)
3) The tip fee at the Skagit Transfer Station on the mainland is $89 / ton. As such, San Juan Sanitation could be taking their trucks directly to Skagit and paying significantly less than they currently pay (theoretically $265 / ton) at the Orcas Island Transfer Station…
The only reason that they do not do so already is “flow control” — a regulatory prerogative of the County to designate where solid waste goes. Flow control will no longer be active when the transfer station shifts to private management. Under these circumstances, San Juan Sanitation has determined that $154 is the tip fee rate that they are willing to pay here on Orcas.
With this understanding, Orcas Recycling Services has also extended this tip fee to San Juan Sanitation. Due to economies of scale, without San Juan Sanitation in the mix, self-haulers would have to pay considerably more in order to cover the basic operating expenses of the transfer station.
Clarifications (cont. from above)
4) The owner of Orcas Island Freight Lines is Michael Aley, not “Ealey”.
5)The item scheduled for July 24th was the recommendation of the Vendor Selection Committee to the County Council to begin negotiating a contract with Cimarron, provided the company address a number of deficiencies in their proposal. The County would have awarded the contract to Cimarron only after a process of negotiations and public comment.
Rather than simply going with the Vendor Selection Committee’s recommendation, however, the County Council extended the opportunity to Orcas Recycling Services to address less-than-strong areas in our own proposal as well. For this, we are indebted to all those who wrote and called the Council Members and to the Council Members themselves in being responsive to our community interests and concerns.
Thank you,
Mark DeTray
Exec. Director, ORS
Manager, The Exchange
Hasn’t a community already solved this problem? Let’s learn the lessons we can now, rather than after the decision.
Thanks for your fine coverage, Margie, you really go the extra mile for Orcas, every time!
Thanks Margie, for being there to witness that very important and revealing meeting, and to report on what Dan Leidecker said, and make that known to the rest of the community who missed the meeting. I am disappointed in Mr. Leidecker’s inability to be a team player and help create a win-win-win situation for the community, where everyone gains something we can build together.
Thanks also to Mark DeTray, who has consistently done his homework and given the facts and numbers, and to the Exchange Board for being above-board with all their budget figures, intentions, and transparency with the public as to the actual costs.
As Harvey Aldort pointed out, many of us are willing to pay more, to have what we want. The County has heard us reiterate this for years! I believe that ORS/the Exchange, under its new leadership, will gradually reduce our rates and keep reducing our waste stream.