2001-08-08 Enviromental Management Commission Minutes

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Minutes for Wednesday, August 8, 2001Page 3 of 5 A. INTEGRATED SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN FEMA will be looking at the environmental documents that are necessary for disaster debris sites on the island. Distributed the Supplementary Contract No. 1, which is part of the Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan and it's for the Disaster Debris Action Manual. Items are from the State checklist. The cost of this plan is $80,519.00. Will continue to work on this and to bring all parties involved up to date. Will meet once at the end of August, September, October and November. Should have a final document completed and filed regarding disaster debris hopefully in the middle or end of December. There is a possibility of reimbursement on part of the cost from FEMA funds through Department of Civil Defense. The disaster debris action manual is a response plan so if or when a disaster happens we will have identified at least two sites on each side of the island. Will have a plan and a checklist to go through when this material comes in and be able to sort it and know how to respond to the situation. In a situation where the landfill is closed in three to four years from now, we are still going to identify a site because we have no place to put it. This is a holding area for lumber, roof iron, refrigerators, cars, and everything are brought onto the site. The object to separate whatever is going to come in and have some plan as to what to do with it after all these different items are separated. The chart and accompanied by a Schematic of the Planning Process was handed out. Have identified the meetings although not the dates and possible public hearings. These are options that are identified at present upon the closure of the Hilo Landfill and that might be the end product of the Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan. These options need to be investigated. Questions can be directed to me, to the SWAC members and Barbara Bell. Gasification will have to be added as an option. Don’t know if there are cost estimates for each item. Have listed as many options to make sure that we did cover as many basis as we could think of, as many technologies that are out there, and as many possibilities of handling the refuse post 2004. Kimo had a question on the Schematic of the Planning Process. Doesn’t recall drafting criteria at the SWAC’s first meeting. Larry had to defer that for the consultants and will get back some information. Jon Olson wanted to know if there is a formula for the amount of debris based on population in a disaster. Steve Hambalek of Federal Emergency Management Agency said there is a formula and that the Army Corps of Engineers is developing it. Steve is aware that both the US Army Corps of Engineers has been working over the years developing models for identifying the amount of debris that is generated by disasters. Doesn’t have a figure for cubic feet per person. The process for identifying how much debris is generated is available to Hawai`i County, State of Hawai`i, and they’re developing their debris plan. Waste Composition Study, South Hilo Landfill dated July 2001. The consultants did a study in April and May. They went out to the landfill, sat on the landfill and began to take random samples from random truck loads of refuse that came in and analyzed those samples into 58 different items. Figures are listed as to what the composition of the refuse is by estimated weight for the self- haulers, commercial haulers and transfer stations. With background data, we can at least identify some of the future roles and directions and maybe the facility that’s going to be needed. Memo prepared by Larry Capellas dated August 8, 2001 regarding Budget Breakdown – Estimate. Numbers were taken out of the County type budget and divided the expenditures into nine different areas. The asterisk areas make up the solid waste fund, and the abandoned vehicle fund is another fund. The abandoned vehicle program includes coordination with the police department in identifying abandoned or derelict vehicles and having the coordinator respond to the request either on his own or with a private towing service to tow the abandoned vehicles to one of two metal recycling areas, one in Hilo and the other in Kailua. It includes the cost for Hawai`i Metal Recycling to take the tires, batteries and everything to do with automobiles off the island. Out of a $10.6 million budget, you can see that both landfills are very expensive propositions. B. UPDATE OF ADMINISTRATIVE RULES AND COUNTY CODE CHAPTER 20 Very interested in addressing the tipping fee. The tipping fee is $35.00 a ton for refuse which comes across the scale. As a comparison, Maui County has a tipping fee of $43.00 a ton. Kauai has a tipping fee of $56.00 a ton. Oahu at the Waimanalo Gulch has a tipping fee of $81.00 a ton. They have a base cost there and then they include the City and County of Honolulu's recycling surcharge. They add a surcharge onto their tipping fee of 12% and then they also add a State surcharge of 35¢ per ton for every ton of refuse that goes into the landfill. The State is attempting to increase the surcharge to 75¢ per ton. If you lived on the east side of the island of Oahu, in 2003 you would pay $117 a ton for refuse going across the scale and entering the Kapaa transfer station. In Hawai‘i County, our present permit fee is $25.00 per business, a one-time fee per year for businesses that come across the scale. The tipping fee is $35.00 a ton. In 2000, only 52% of the refuse that came into either landfill were chargeable. The rest of it came from the County Transfer Stations. Of the 52% at $35.00 a ton plus the $25.00 permit fee, our potential income is a little over $3 million. If you increased the tipping fee to $45.00 a ton, you would only raise the possible revenue up to about $3.9 million. If you raised the tipping fee to a level at which it would fund the entire solid waste operation, it would be about $87.00 - $90.00 a ton. The other part you have to keep in mind the fact that we charge $35.00 a ton for those who come across the scale in West Hawai‘i and then pay Waste Management $50.00 a ton for their services at the Puuanahulu landfill. Approaching the Council with a request to add a user fee onto the real property tax to cover the area that is identified on the chart as transfer stations. In order to narrow down the identified cost of the system of transfer stations versus who actually use them and file://C:\Test1\minutes080801.htm6/22/2011