2006-04-06 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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EPA, in 1993, changed the laws regarding lining landfills, the DEM needed to ask for a lot more money to comply with this unfunded mandate and that they are living on borrowed time. She said that solid waste programs are expensive and controversial and have no dedicated funding sources. She said people are not likely to make decisions because of the complexity, expense, and controversy and she would welcome recommendations in this area. The next page of Ms. Bell's handout showed how the General Fund transfer has been used in the Solid Waste Division. She said it is basically used to fund transfer stations and that it is a policy decision. The Wastewater Division has 5 treatment plants and 18 pump stations, which operate 365 days a year, 24 hours per day. It has 45 employees and 3 NPDES permits, which are very large permits. The assumption at the Wastewater Division is that users pay for all operations, maintenance, and repairs, which is a grant condition for building of the plants. They also use State revolving loan funds at a very low interest rate. They do not go against the County's bond indebtedness. Ms. Bell went on to explain that the Vehicle Disposal Program is an island -wide program and has only one employee. This program has problems, some of which are rooted in the law and others in its operations. She said the COGC could spend almost a year on this program alone, trying to make it better. She has spent three years dealing with the Police Department, the Prosecutor's Office, and the County Council, as well as the public on this program. She said there are now two scrap metal recovery yards, one in Kona and one in Hilo, as well as towing and scrap metal recycling. These help make it better, but there is a long way to go. The Vehicle Disposal Program is funded through vehicle registration every year. It is to cover the ultimate disposal of a vehicle. It also pays for picking up abandoned cars. The bulk of the money is for recycling. It is unfortunate that taxpayer dollars have to pay for the abandoned cars of irresponsible people, but the bulk of the money is actually for recyling metal, which is an expensive process. The metal cannot go into the landfill by law and is a health hazard. Getting people to change their disposal habits meets with a lot of resistance. The Technical Services Section was created one and a half years ago, and it handles CIP projects in the DEM. The CIP list is mainly a wish list which has 30 projects on it. It is doubtful that the DEM will get to any of them. For the next two years the DEM is looking at $50 million in wastewater projects and $15 million in solid waste projects. The Technical Services Section is managing 15 contracts with two very good employees. These employees handle a lot more projects than an engineering firm would handle, which makes it no wonder that things move slowly. An example is now they have an operations engineer at the Solid Waste Division. They only engineer they had before was the chief. The engineer has finally assessed all the transfer stations, done drawings and aerial flyovers and now can move on upgrading and repairing. They would have had to hire a consultant to do this before, which means going out to bid. The construction phase would then start, which is easily a two- to three -year process. They have lost out on HUD funding, because they were given a $250,000 grant, but it took so long to go 3