CITY OF SANTA ROSA CITY COUNCIL TO: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL ...

Agenda Item #11.2
For Council Meeting of: July 19, 2011

CITY OF SANTA ROSA
CITY COUNCIL

TO: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL

SUBJECT: SOLID WASTE ADVISORY GROUP (SWAG) UPDATE

STAFF PRESENTER: KATHLEEN MILLISON, CITY MANAGER
CITY MANAGER’S OFFICE

AGENDA ACTION: MOTION

_____________________________________________________________________

ISSUE

Should the Council accept the report providing an update on SWAG activities,
presenting the recommendations from the SWAG Research Committee Report and the
next steps in SWAG process? Provide feedback on Research Report
recommendations and direct jurisdiction SWAG member to vote to proceed with a
consultant study of the recommendations.

BACKGROUND

On December 8, 2009, the County Board of Supervisors approved the formation of a
regional advisory group for the express purpose of developing a long-term Solid Waste
strategy. On December 17, 2009, the Board Chair sent letters to each of the City
Mayors inviting their participation and asking each Council to appoint a representative
and an alternate member.

The purpose of the Sonoma County/City Solid Waste Advisory Group is to make
recommendations on solid waste system planning and operations, such as, appropriate
regional solid waste projects, priorities, schedules and funding sources to be
considered by the Member Jurisdictions.

The first meeting of the SWAG was held on February 22, 2010. The meetings are
chaired by Board Supervisor Shirlee Zane and are Co-Chaired by Councilmembers
John Sawyer, Santa Rosa, and Steve Barbose, Sonoma.

The current voting members and alternates include:
County of Sonoma – Supervisor Shirlee Zane
County of Sonoma – Supervisor David Rabbitt
City of Sonoma – Councilmember Steve Barbose, Alt. Mayor Laurie Gallian
City of Healdsburg – Councilmember Jim Wood, Alt. all Councilmembers
City of Santa Rosa – Councilmember John Sawyer, Alt. Gary Wysocky
City of Cotati – Vice Mayor Susan Harvey, Alt. Mark Landman
City of Rohnert Park – Councilmember Pam Stafford, Alt. Mayor Gina Belforte

Solid Waste Advisory Group Update
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City of Cloverdale – Vice Mayor Bob Cox, Alt. Joe Palla
Town of Windsor – Vice Mayor Deborah Fudge, Alt. Sam Salmon
City of Sebastopol – Mayor Guy Wilson, Alt. Sarah Glade Gurney
City of Petaluma – Councilmember Tiffany Renee, Alt. Gabe Kearney

In October and November 2010, staff to the SWAG met with all member jurisdictions to
provide them with an overview on the SWAG, results of a facilitated discussion on
SWAG goals and objectives, and a timeline of proposed future SWAG activities.

The purpose of this agenda item is to update the member jurisdictions on actions and
activities of the SWAG that have taken place since the prior presentation and to get
feedback to bring back to SWAG.

ANALYSIS

Update on SWAG Activities

At the November 15, 2010 SWAG meeting, staff gave an update on the presentations
to Cities and the County on the preliminary SWAG goals and objectives. Also, the
SWAG authorized the formation of the Research Committee.

On February 28, 2011, following feedback from the jurisdictional presentations as well
as further discussion of the SWAG, the SWAG adopted the following goals and
objectives:

Waste Diversion Objectives
 80% diversion by 2015, focus on organics and education
 90% diversion by 2020, identify how to get to 100%
 100% diversion as a long-term goal (25-50 yrs)

Economic Efficiencies
 Develop upstream regional fee system, or other reasonable alternative which
allows for maximized diversion and minimized cost
 Reopen Central Landfill; provides revenues for regional liabilities
 New Regional Compost Facility; for increased diversion of Organics
 Central Landfill mining, may provide additional revenues

Local Control
 Evaluate different governance models
 Develop Franchise Agreements that reflect the Local (Regional) Priorities
 Identify and articulate the regional benefits of jurisdictional flow commitment

The SWAG Research Committee (RC) was directed to recommend a short list of
options which could feasibly meet the SWAG’s goals and objectives. The
recommendations from the Research Committee Report, dated May 11, 2011, were
presented to the SWAG at their May 16, 2011 meeting and are summarized below.

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SWAG Research Committee Report

The RC’s scope of work was to recommend a short list of options which can feasibly
meet SWAG’s objectives for increased diversion, economic efficiency and local control.

The SWAG focused on creating a diverse membership on the RC, with none of the
committee members having a business interest in the outcome. That being said the RC
encouraged active participation from the stakeholders during preparation of the report.
The committee representation and the participant representation are shown below.

Committee Membership Active Committee Participants

Elected Officials Landfill Operators
City and County staff Haulers
Regulatory Recyclers
Environmental Community C&D Processors
Business Community Composting
Public

The RC built their recommendation on a foundation of reliable existing data. Their
overall approach was based on the consensus assumption that it would be most cost
effective to maximize use of existing waste collection, processing and recycling
infrastructure, before recommending development of any new infrastructure. Therefore,
the following steps were used to develop their findings and recommendations:

 Define landfill waste disposal volumes & trends
 Identify existing in-county processing and diversion infrastructure capacity
 Evaluate landfill waste characterization (what types of materials make up the

waste that is still going to a landfill for disposal) and want materials are divertible
(i.e. can to be re-used or recycled)
 Compare existing infrastructure capacity vs. the quantity of remaining divertible
materials in the waste stream – identify gaps
 Identify processing options to address gaps – traditional & emerging
technologies
 Develop findings and recommendations to maximize use of existing
infrastructure as well as address new infrastructure needs if any

The Executive summary of the SWAG Research Committee Report dated May 11,
2011 is included herein as Attachment A. The full report is available on the SWAG
webpage at: http://www.sonoma-
county.org/tpw/pdf/integrated_waste/advisory_group/swag_research_committee_final_r
eport_20110511.pdf

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The findings and recommendations are summarized below:

Finding #1: The existing infrastructure for single stream recycling and construction and
demolition debris recycling (C&D) has capacity which is currently underutilized. The
waste going to landfill disposal still contains significant quantities of these divertible
materials.

Recommendation #1:
A. Increase Waste Reduction and Diversion Education through door-to-door
(face-to-face visits) outreach focused at commercial and C&D waste
generators (level of effort = one-full time position)
B. Increase education efforts at schools and institutions (level of effort = one
half-time position)
C. Adopt a Model Countywide Mandatory Commercial Recycling Ordinance
D. Adopt a Model Countywide C&D Recycling Ordinance

It should be noted that SWAG members pointed out that in some cases face to face
visits with Commercial and Multi-family units are included in their existing franchise
collection agreements. Attachment B shows a summary of the current education efforts
required by the jurisdictions to be provided by their waste collector.

Finding #2: Organics is the largest fraction of the waste stream that is still being landfill
disposed. Food waste is the largest fraction of the organic waste stream. Current
infrastructure capacity does not exist to address this volume.

Recommendation #2:
A. Support the current efforts of the Sonoma County Waste Management
Agency (SCWMA) to develop new composting capacity in Sonoma County
and encourage the facility design to include food waste composting
B. Determine the feasibility of the Santa Rosa Laguna Wastewater Treatment
Plant playing a role in the re-use of food waste
C. Once a full food waste diversion program is available, provide focused one-
time education outreach to generators for maximizing use.

Finding #3: Even with effective efforts to maximize use of existing single stream
recycling infrastructure in order to meet higher diversion goals such as 90%, a mixed
waste processing facility will likely be needed to remove recyclables from the
commercial and multi-family waste streams.

Recommendation #3:
A. Study development of a Mixed Waste Processing Facility that targets the
Multi-Family and Commercial Waste Stream
B. Design Flexibility into the system for emerging technologies

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Finding #4: In order to achieve the highest diversion goals, it will be necessary to
address the “remainder/composite”, “mixed residue” and “Other” materials within the
waste stream. Technologies such as anaerobic digestion and thermal conversion could
address this waste stream and create renewable energy. These technologies are
expensive and currently unproven in California for use with municipal solid waste at the
scale that would be required.

Recommendation #4:
A. Implement further analysis – after first measuring the success of
implementation of the other measures
B. Adopt a policy to support innovative emerging technologies that may be
proposed by the private sector within the region

The RC developed the cost summary included on page 7 of the Executive Summary,
only as a tool for the SWAG members to get a relative feel for cost/benefit of the
recommended options. The RC understands that there are different methods to
achieve the recommendations. The RC anticipated that a consultant would be hired to
perform an independent analysis of the options presented in the Research Committee
Report.

Other SWAG activities that are on-going include:

On March 30, 2001, the County submitted application to the Regional Water Quality
Control Board, CalRecycle and the Local Enforcement Agency to permit the full
development of the Central Disposal Site. The regulatory agencies are reviewing the
application for “completeness” once it is deemed complete they will commence their
review.

The SWAG also identified the need to form a technical advisory committee (TAC) of
County and City staff and counsel’s to work on such issues as governance, system
funding options, and settlement of liabilities. The TAC has been meeting since
December with the goal of coming to consensus on some basic principles to be
addressed by a settlement agreement. In addition, the TAC has been begun working
with a consultant to address funding structure options. The TAC also recently provided
an update to the SWAG on how the passage of Proposition 26 may impact the
discussions related to system funding structure.

Next Steps in SWAG Process

In July 2010, the SWAG directed staff proceed based upon a Vision Statement that
outlined the process by which the SWAG would develop its recommendations for the
long-term regional waste solution. It is enclosed as Attachment C. Consistent with the
process as outlined the following next steps are planned.

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Completion of Planning Phase

The next step in the planning phase is to check-in with each of the jurisdictions to get
feedback on the recommendations in the SWAG Research Committee Report and the
SWAG’s conceptual next steps in the process. Once each city has provided feedback
to their SWAG representative, the SWAG representatives will be asked to vote on the
conceptual direction.

Analysis Phase

With the conceptual selection of the waste diversion option(s), the next phase will
involve a third party detailed feasibility analysis. The first step in the Analysis Phase will
be to commission a third party consultant to analyze the short list of options, which will
include cost-benefit, life cycle cost, sensitivity analysis and reliability analysis. In
particular, the reliability analysis will involve the consultant independently developing
the estimated costs of the options as well as independently estimating the diversion
potential of each option. The scope of this analysis will include analysis of full system
costs, and the cost-benefit of the landfill disposal at the Central Landfill versus out-haul
of remaining waste to out-of-county landfills for disposal, with and without the potential
increases in diversion that may be accomplished under the proposed options. A
preliminary outline of the consultant’s scope of work is attached at Attachment D. This
will be present to and finalized with the SWAG in the future, after they receive the
jurisdictional feedback resulting from these presentations.

The third party analysis report will be reviewed by the TAC consisting of the City and
County managers, counsel and staff, prior to being brought back to the SWAG for their
consideration.

The TAC will have also completed analysis of governance options as well as a
construct in moving revenue collections upstream. Upon the completion of analysis, the
TAC will be recommending to the SWAG a waste diversion strategy, a governance
model, and a methodology with schedule for moving revenue collection upstream. The
SWAG will be asked to select the long-term solid waste strategy with another check-in
with each of the individual jurisdictions to make sure they concur with the SWAG
direction.

RECOMMENDATION

It is recommended by the City Manager’s Office that Council, by motion, accept the
SWAG Research Committee report and provide feedback on the Research Report
Recommendations and direct SWAG members to vote to proceed with the consultant
study of the recommendations in the report.

Solid Waste Advisory Group Update
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Author: Kathleen Millison

Attachments:

Attachment A - Executive Summary of the SWAG Research Committee Report
Attachment B - Education by Garbage Franchise Agreement
Attachment C - Vision for the SWAG to Develop a Long-Term Regional Solid
Waste Resource Solution
Attachment D - Preliminary Scope of Consultant Analysis