Loading...
BCC Minutes 07/30/2001 J (w/Glades County BCC)July 30, 2001 TRANSCRIPT OF THE JOINT GLADES COUNTY/COLLIER COUNTY, MEETING REGARDING A POTENTIAL JOINT SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT VENTURE WITH THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Monday, July 30, 2001 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 4:10 p.m. In WORKSHOP SESSION at Glades County Commission Chambers, Glades County Courthouse, 500 Avenue J, Moore Haven, Florida, with the following members present: (From Collier County): Commissioner James D. Carter, Ph.D. Commissioner Pamela S. Mac'Kie Commissioner Tom Henning Thomas Olliff, County Manager Jim Mudd, Public Utilities George Yilmaz, Solid Waste Page 1 July 30, 2001 Ramiro Manalich, Assistant County Attorney Robert Hauser, Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc. Philip Barbaccia, DEP (From Glades County): Chairman Bob Giesler Commissioner Alvin Ward Commissioner K. S. Butch Jones Commissioner Tom Johnson Mike Rider, County Attorney David Whidden, Solid Waste Director Dale Malita, Consultant Sandra Brown, Clerk Page 2 AGENDA FOR JOINT GLADES COUNTY/COLLIER COUNTY MEETING REGARDING A POTENTIAL JOINT SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT VENTURE TO BE HELD AT GLADES COUNTY COMMISSION CHAMBER- 2~° FL. GLADES COUNTY COURTHOUSE 500 AVENUE J MOORE HAVEN, FL 33471 MONDAY, JULY 30TM, 2001 AT 4:00PM Opening Ceremony - Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag 1. Introduction of Glades County Commissioners by Robert Giesler, Chairman, Glades County Board of County Commissioners Introduction of Collier County Commissioners by James D. Carter, Ph.D., Chairman, Collier County Board of County Commissioners 2. Staff Presentations Glades County Staff Collier County Staff and Consultant Camp Dresser McKee 3. Commissioners' Comments 4. Commissioners' Direction to their respective Staff 5. Setting next Joint Meeting Date (if applicable) 6. A.djour~ For information regarding this meeting please contact the Collier County Solid Waste Department at (941) 732-2505. July 30, 2001 (Proceedings commenced without Commissioner Carter present.) CHAIRMAN GIESLER: We'll call this joint meeting of Collier and Glades County to order. This is not a workshop. This is a scheduled meeting, I understand. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well -- CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Am I right? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- if I may -- this is Pam Mac'Kie for the record. For the first 15 minutes anyway, we'd like to make it officially a workshop, and then as soon as our chairman arrives and we have a quorum, then we can call it as a meeting. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. This is in regard to the potential joint solid waste management venture between the two counties. The first item on the agenda would be the pledge of allegiance. Would you-all stand, please, and face the flag. (The pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN GIESLER: I might add before we start that anytime someone out there wants to talk, come up to the podium because the stenographer says she can't listen and type at the same time if you're back in the back, so maybe you can come up here. If you don't she's going to make you. Isn't that right? THE COURT REPORTER: Right. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: themselves too. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Yeah. Okay. They need to identify I'm sure they all know that. Introduction to the County Commissioners. I'm Chairman Robert Giesler. To my right is Chairman Butch Jones. COMMISSIONER JONES: Vice chairman. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Vice chairman. Okay. Chairman Page 3 July 30, 2001 Alvin Ward. Commissioner Simmons is not here, and Commissioner Tom Johnson. At this time could you introduce your commissioners. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd be happy to. I'm the vice chair. I'm Pam Mac'Kie, and this is Tom Henning, and we're grateful to be meeting with you today. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. Staff presentations. We have our attorney, Mr. Mike Rider, and we have our landfill director, David Whidden. At times like this, we only have one in each department, so it doesn't take us long to introduce everybody. At this time do you want to introduce your people that are here? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Would you take that, Mr. Mudd? MR. MUDD: Yes. Sir, for the record, I'm Jim Mudd, the public utilities administrator for Collier County, and I have the solid waste department under me along with water, sewer, and beach renourishment -- I haven't figured that one out yet, but we've got that process. With us today -- the county manager's with Chairman Carter in the car about 15 minutes away -- we brought a contractor here, Camp Dresser & Mac'Kie -- McKee, excuse me. I don't want to get into the two royalties and things like that. But they have -- we had them do a study for us, a preliminary look at the prospect of a joint partnership, and they prepared a briefing for us today. I think you've had that "read ahead" given to you. David passed that along with a report. I've got Assistant County Attorney Ramiro Manalich with us. The senior vice president of Camp Dresser & McKee, Robert Hauser, is here to give that presentation; David Dee, who also acts as a consultant and one of the attorneys for solid waste. He does a lot of solid waste practices within the State of Florida. We also have -- from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection we have Phil Barbaccia who basically works the permit issues for both Page 4 July 30, 2001 counties in that process along to see what's transpiring. So he had a look at this process, and it was through Phil that he asked us to make the initial contact with David on the different permit issues between the county. So that's his tie into that process. George Yilmaz, my director of solid waste, is making sure that the commissioner gets here. He'll be here in about ten minutes too. That's who we brought from the county with us, sir. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. MR. MUDD: There are two commissioners that couldn't be with us today. Commissioner Fiala just had major surgery, and she just got the needles out of her veins. We talked to her, and she's very -- she's recovering. Commissioner Coletta is going to a memorial service this evening. One of-- one of the longstanding commissioners -- one of the pillars of Collier County, Max Hasse, his wife passed away unexpectedly over the weekend, and he is representing the Board of County Commissioners tonight at that memorial service and couldn't be here. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. David, do you want to give us a little rundown on what you're -- where we're at or what we're doing here, I guess. MR. WHIDDEN: I'm David Whidden. I'm the solid waste director for Glades County. Several months ago while in the Fort Myers DEP office I was discussing the upcoming application for renewal of our landfill operating permit. And as fiscal issues were being reviewed, Mr. Phil Barbaccia and myself were discussing the difficulties that we might face -- that Glades County might face paying expansion costs and operating costs simultaneously while receiving less than 25 tons per day of waste of all descriptions. At that time Mr. Barbaccia suggested that Glades County and Collier County may wish to discuss some type of joint venture concerning waste disposal as they were having an air space Page 5 July 30, 2001 problem for waste disposal. I contacted Mr. George Yilmaz of Collier County -- he's the solid waste director -- and we met at the Glades County Landfill No. 2 on a Sunday morning, and we discussed our respective county situations. Simply put, to make a short form of it, Glades County was going to be hard-pressed for financing partial closure and expansion of our fill area in the near future, but we have approximately one million cubic yards of air space for disposal of household waste. Collier County, on the other hand, will be hard-pressed for air space for solid waste disposal in their near future, but they had a very adequate solid waste trust fund bottom line. After a landfill tour and reviewing construction and expansion drawings of our landfill, Mr. Yilmaz returned to Collier County and discussed our meeting with his people. Shortly after that meeting Commissioner Ward and myself met with Mr. Yilmaz at the Naples landfill to further continue discussions on this matter. Now, following that meeting the Collier County staff and their engineer firm again visited our landfill in preparatory to performing an engineering study on the feasability of any sort of entry between Glades and Collier County. When that study was completed, the Collier County staff met with Chairman Giesler, County Manager Holt and myself in our courthouse to discuss the study. And from that discussion this meeting was set up, and here we are. That is a short history of this project at this time, and I think we can turn it over to Mr. Mudd now for their opening. MR. MUDD: Thanks, David. The history pretty much goes as David has specified, but our contact with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection was a conversation between Mr. Barbaccia and myself who basically said, "You might want to talk to Glades County. They might have a dollar issue where you have an air space issue. They might have air space, and there might be some mutual Page 6 July 30, 2001 benefit that can transpire between two counties," and I said, "Fine." One of the things that's happened in Collier County -- I arrived in October to the county, and we were in the process of a consent order for our landfill. We have an odor issue at our landfill. The landfill in years past has received not only sludge, but it's also received wallboard, gypsum, and the mixtures of those two things in the landfill have caused some problems. The landfill was designed with a leachate collection and an odor-control system that -- it basically was designed in a capacity that wouldn't handle those kinds of ingredients into the landfill. We're in the process of trying to control that process right now. We're flaring off the gas. And we've got it to the point in time where it's pretty much contained. The day when we have a mechanical problem with the landfill, we'll have an odor issue that goes off-site. So we don't have a permit. We haven't had a permit in our landfill for a number of years, and we might not get a permit for our landfill. I guess the next 60 days for us are very difficult times for the county because the county has asked for a 60-day extension to that consent order until 1 October, and it gives them a full look at what the wet season is like because during the wet season you get more gas if your leachate-collection system and your odor-control collection system isn't working, then that's when you'll produce the most gas, and that's when you'll have most off-site presence of odors. So the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is looking quite closely at that process. What the county has also done is got the citizen neighborhood folks involved in an odor-monitoring process with us. Not only are we doing it mechanically with different meters to detect H2S, but we've also got the local folks taking a look at us. We trained them as far as what odor -- you know, what they can tell is landfill odor, what the concentrations are, so they can get an idea of that process, and Page 7 July 30, 2001 they're basically reporting that to us as we try to pinpoint it and make sure it's a landfill thing and not a H2S thing from wells or irrigation, because there is some of that that transpires on a daily basis in those neighborhoods. What we've asked our consultant to do is take a look at the process, to figure out what the tip fees would be, to figure out what kind of process we could look at in the short term. David talked about a million cubic yards worth of air space. I will tell you that Collier County last year took into its landfill 465,000 tons. So you can start doing tons to cubic yards. You can get into the ballpark in that process. Now, about half of that -- we've gone into an intense process to try to compost and try to get the construction demolition materials so that they don't end up in the landfill and try to divert those from the fill. Our estimate is that we'll have around 240,000 tons of municipal solid waste that we'll have to landfill into the future. (Commissioner Carter is now present.) MR. MUDD: That's taking about 50 percent out of waste stream and diverting it from that process. There are some things that can be beneficial for both counties. If we design the landfill to the point where it can collect gas and generate electricity -- and Mr. Hauser can define it a little bit more. There is an opportunity where we can produce electricity. Electricity in the form of-- enough to basically get all the electricity that you need in Glades County. Now, the distribution system is one thing, but it's within a five-year period of time. He'll talk about that in a little bit in the details in the study, but that's another process. Plus, you have the tipping fees. With that kind of disposal into the two hundred and forty to two hundred and fifty thousand tons, one dollar is a quarter of a million dollars on a tip fee. If you get up to $4, you're at a million dollars. Okay. So there is some Page 8 July 30, 2001 opportunities in order to work the different coffers to work some issues that you have for building capacity and closings. As David had mentioned, the county has about $15 million in its reserve right now, in the solid waste reserve, so those dollars are present. That's kind of the situation that Collier County sees itself in right now. Again, we're here, basically, through a catalyst of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection but in a common sharing atmosphere to see if a joint venture would be possible in the future, and there's a lot more staff details that need to be worked out in that process. So in no way, shape, or form are we asking for a decision today. I think it will be quite clear from the CDM thing that it's a process where we need to engage the staffs a little bit more to work out the details, to look at each other's books, to make sure we can figure out what's amiable for Glades County and what's amiable for Collier County, and then to sometime in the future come back together and make some decisions and see if this can really happen or not. But, again, this forum is an opening forum to discuss it in the open, to make sure that it's above the table and everybody knows it, the constituents in Collier County and in Glades County, and so we can get in and get some staff work done and work out the details for yOU. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: I think your chairman is here now. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Introduce yourself. We already did that. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Our apologizes for the late arrival. We thank you for the opportunity to be here, Mr. Chairman and members of your commission, and your gracious invitation to be here for us to participate and have this discussion is most appreciated by Collier County. Page 9 July 30, 2001 Mr. Mudd has, I think, outlined where we are and how we would like to engage with you the discussion about the potential use in working with you on a landfill opportunity here in your county. So, again, on behalf of Collier County and our board and our staff, we thank you. Again, our apologies for our delay in getting here. We had a little bit of an issue in Collier that we will fill others in on as we evolve in our discussion this afternoon. Thank you very, very much for having us here and for the opportunity to be a part of this meeting. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Thank you. We can go ahead into the regular meeting now and get out of the workshop because the chairman is here. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: So Mr. -- McKee is it? Is that who wanted to speak? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Whose going to take us through the PowerPoint? MR. MUDD: Sir, the Camp, Dresser & McKee senior vice president, Mr. Robert Hauser. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Oh, I'm sorry. MR. MUDD: That's okay. He's probably honored by the fact that he's a full partner now. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. Thank you. MR. HAUSER: Thank you, Commissioners and Commissioners. It's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon. I just have a very brief presentation going through some of the things that are being talked about in terms of what would be associated with a joint program between Glades County and Collier County. I guess in terms of the background -- I think you've heard most of the background. Glades County faces some financial concerns with their short- and long-term landfill management. Collier County Page 10 July 30, 2001 is seeking a long-term solid waste management program. The purpose of this work is to investigate jointly developing a comprehensive solid waste management program meeting the needs of both counties. Just a quick review of our solid waste quantities of tons per year, you can see Glades County in 2001 and 2020, and Collier County, 500,000 tons now increasing to over 800,000 tons. These numbers are a little bit rounded off, but there's a substantial difference in tonnage. In terms of looking at the long-term solid waste management program, what we're really looking at is a system that integrates all of the elements that are associated with any solid waste management program: Source reduction, reducing the amount of waste that's being generated; recycling, reusing our waste; and composting and recovering materials from degradation of biological materials, collection -- it reaches into the collection system -- processing, which would be associated with -- a lot of it's associated with recycling and recovery of waste and the reuse of the waste, transfer and haul of waste between the counties and, finally, disposal. In terms of establishing a solid waste management facility or facilities, some of the major components that we're looking at -- and they could be located in either county -- include a state-of-the-art landfill, materials recovery processing, construction and demolition waste processing and recycling -- I should point out that construction and demolition waste represents 25 or 30 percent of the waste stream that's generated; it's a large fraction of material that's generated-- organic waste composting, and electronics recycling and reuse on the materials. In terms of the facility sites, it would be optimizing the sites available in each county and utilizing the existing solid waste sites or some of these facilities possibly and looking at a new site in Glades Page 11 July 30, 2001 County. Just very briefly, this (indicating) is just a schematic of a conceptual new solid waste management facility which includes a landfill area and the associated environmental controls that go with that. You've got a composting area, a C&D processing area, a recycling center as well as the scales, the roads, the materials that go in there. We're probably looking at a site with an active footprint of landfill area of somewhere around two hundred and fifty acres, but you'll probably want to look at a site that's significantly bigger than that, five or six hundred acres or even more, to provide the buffer strips and the area around the site to keep it well shielded. Again, we have a location map showing the location of the existing facilities which includes the Glades County landfill as well as the Immokalee, the Naples landfill in Collier County, and Collier County's composting facility that they have underway and operating. In terms of the two counties, one of the options is for material from Collier County being transported up to Glades County, which might include municipal waste, C&D material, and include recyclable materials coming up to Glades County for processing or reuse or for disposal. At the same time, we may have materials coming from Glades County back down to Collier County, again, depending upon where the specific facilities are located. C&D processing, for example, or composting, for those types of things, the waste would be coming back from Glades to Collier. Then finally you would have -- materials might be generated in either county for reuse going off to markets in the local area or across the state or nation. One of the key components of the system would be a state-of-the-art landfill. What we were looking at and what's being looked at is not a traditional landfill but a bioreactor type of landfill. Very briefly, it's a managed and controlled decomposition Page 12 July 30, 2001 process. Normally when solid waste is dropped into a landfill, it is left there over a very long extended period of time, and it decomposes and degrades and generates gas and finally settles, and at some point way in the future it becomes very -- hopefully very benign. With a bioreactor you're really managing the decomposition process, and you're accelerating it. You're adding water to the system. You're managing the gas that's generated. By managing that and doing it, you can increase the gas production in a time period over which it occurs, and it's enough to supply substantial electrical power to the grid. The accelerated settlement requires less land. Landfills will traditionally settle 25 or 30 percent of their volume. Well, if you get that settlement out of the way very quickly, now you've created -- you'll be able to reuse that volume that you had already used at one time. You have earlier stabilization of the site which shortens the long-term care and allows earlier site reuse and development of the site for other purposes in the future, and there's also opportunities for mining the materials that have decomposed in the landfill for various uses and recovery and recycling. This (indicating) is just a very quick isometric of a bioreactor landfill. Basically, you're introducing the leachate and rate while it's collected in the landfill back into the landfill, redistributing it through the landfill with a system of piping to make sure that the system is being managed and controlled and the temperatures and moisture contents are managed. You're collecting the gas, which is collected and sent to an energy recovery building. It has an extensive line system underneath it to protect the ground water and to protect the environment, and it's really a managed process of decomposing the solid waste in a large volume. Page 13 July 30, 2001 Again, a cross-section shows the liner system. You've got gas recirculation pipes, leachate collection pipes, control valves for both introducing water back into the site and for extracting the gas. The intent is to have -- it's not a simple landfill with a few pipes in it. This is an extensively designed and managed process to speed up the decomposition of the waste and recover the gas from it for reuse. Again, I mentioned construction and demolition waste processing and recycling. This is a significant fraction of the waste stream throughout the country and particularly in Florida with the development that's going on. By getting in there and processing the C&D type material, it reduces the disposal requirements for a large fraction of the stream, and it significantly increases recycling and reuse because much of this material can be reused and is, in fact, currently being reused in many places. This (indicating) is a typical -- it's a concrete processing plant with a concrete -- broken concrete from construction projects is brought in, broken pavement, and it's reprocessed for aggregate and other materials for fill material or for further concrete production. This (indicating) is a facility that's chipping and recovering wood, wood products. The wood can then be reused and repackaged in potential forms either mixed with composting material or to be used and sold as its own kind of mulch material. Composting organic waste is something that's very commonly done and has been done in the past. Really what we're focusing on is yard waste materials, the green waste-type materials, and other very organic type of materials. Again, it's enhancing the recovery and the reuse of solid waste materials. There's actually -- Collier County at the present time has a composting operation and with the huge agricultural use in this area, there's a very strong ready market in the local area for the use of this composting, particularly given the very sandy and silky soils that we Page 14 July 30, 2001 have in this area and throughout Florida. This is a real good way of enriching the soil and increasing its productivity. So there's a ready market in this area for that material. Again, it reduces the need of waste to have to go into any kind of a final disposal or landfill area. It's hard to see, but this (indicating) is actually a pile of shredded organic material. It's a static pile where oxygen is actually being introduced into the pile and sucked through the pile to increase the decomposition of the pile. Again, these (indicating) are windrows where the compost material is actually being cured and turned over, and there's machines that run between these piles. It's just like a giant tiller. It turns these piles over. It keeps them aerated and conducts a good, proper operation. This (indicating) particular operation in, you know, Collier County, is in the open. Very often it can be put into enclosed buildings, and the entire operation can be enclosed. I didn't show any pictures of that because all you see is a big K-Mart type of building sitting there. You wouldn't know what was in it. A transfer or haul is the optimizing of hauling of solid waste over long distances. You're really taking solid waste from the smaller collection vehicles that run through people's neighborhoods or servicing commercial accounts and putting them in very large 18-wheelers which are much more efficient for the long haul of hauling over distances. One of the options that exists in Collier and Glades County is that the same transfer vehicles that may be bringing materials up to Glades County or from Glades County to Collier County can be used to haul back and forth materials providing for an even more efficient system. This (indicating) is a typical transfer station. You can see that's a transfer vehicle. Inside the building the opening is off on the right. Trucks back in. There's a big concrete floor all under cover and contained, and the waste is dumped on the floor, and an end-loader Page 15 July 30, 2001 pushes it through a hole over these tunnels with the transfer trailers and then dumps them into the top of the transfer trailer. The transfer trailer then has to close and seal the waste in so there's no blowing paper. When you see these trucks on the highway, you can't tell them from any other 18-wheeler that you might see on the highway going along. This (indicating) is another transfer station that was just constructed. Again, there's an area for the trucks to drive in over here (indicating), but there's also -- this one also includes a separate internal facility for handling residential vehicles, small pick-up trucks from the residents, and keeps them separate from the large trucks. You don't want to mix the two together if you can help it. Now I want to talk a little bit about what are the benefits of a subregional approach with Glades County and Collier County. One of the things is it provides funding to Glades County for its solid waste management service and other county needs, and it would also provide employment opportunities for the facilities -- or any facilities that would be constructed and operated here. For Glades and Collier County, there are some very key benefits. One is the development of one integrated full-service and long-term solid waste management system that can serve both counties. It really substantially increases the opportunities to utilize - - to recover and utilize recovered materials, and the solid waste management system remains in control of the two counties. You would maintain control over the system. You would say what's goes on and how it goes on and what's going to be done. Some of the administrative options that are commonly used -- and you-all probably know these better than I do, but they include interlocal service agreements. Very often on the interlocal service agreements usually it's one political entity being a lead and the other political entity contracted for the services there. Agreements for joint Page 16 July 30, 2001 activities, the establishment of special service districts, and then at the top end is the establishment of a public authority to administer and run the system. Some of the key issues that need to be discussed is really further defining what the solid waste management system is going to include, including the various functions, facilities, what do the two counties want to see included in the system, how is it going to be done. It's, really, assigning responsibilities of who's going to run what, who's going to do what, and really nailing those things down. All of the issues that have been discussed-- everything is open and subject to negotiations between the two counties. Both Boards of County Commissioners must approve all actions. Nothing is going to occur without the approval of both Boards of County Commissioners. And, finally, the next step and what the purpose of this meeting today is to really have both boards direct staff to start commencing work on working together for what this joint solid waste management system will be. Okay. Any questions? CHAIRMAN GIESLER: I have one question. I think it will be the first one that Sue's going to ask. Why Glades County? Why not Collier? Why come to our county when you can do it in your own county? I'm sure that's going to be a question that everybody wants to ask to start off. COMMISSIONER CARTER: We'll let Mr. Mudd answer that for you. MR. MUDD: About ten years ago, there was a large discussion -- and it might be almost 15 years ago, come to think of it -- a large discussion in Collier County about a waste energy plant. At the same time, there was also a study to go out and take a look at an alternative site for solid waste within the county. Several alternatives and recommendations were made at the time, and it became a very Page 17 July 30, 2001 intense political battle, from what I've been told as I read the history and read the different agendas. So that's a little bit of history of that process. Now, more current history, Collier County is in the middle of a governor's consent order as far as the rural fringe and rural lands in the county. The urban boundary is well defined in the county. It's one mile to the east of 951, which is a road that runs north and south in the county between Lee County and Collier County until it intersects with 41 in the south. That's been defined. Anything that happens to the eastern part of that boundary line is subject to the governor's consent order as they run through that process. We're in the process in the county of assessing where those particular areas are where growth can transpire. The county acquired 325 acres to the north of its present landfill. It's present landfill is about 312 acres. That 320 acres to the north of it was acquired for landfill space. It's in the middle of a wetland area, a red-cockaded woodpecker area. You name it, we have it in that particular area, and that is one of the intense areas that the governor is taking a look at with some scrutiny about what can be done and what can't be done in that possible process. In that area, those 320 acres, based on the current details of what can be built and how many trees or cover can be taken down in that process, they have to leave about 90 percent of the cover in that area. So of those 320 acres, there's about 30 or 35 that we can use to do a landfill, any kind of sewer facility or whatever. So Collier County in this particular instance is hurting for that kind of land because we have an awful lot of preserves. We have an awful lot of wetlands, and almost 75 percent of the county is either owned by the state or owned by the federal government, and they've got it in those kind of preserves. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: We have the same situation here. Page 18 July 30, 2001 MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: I guess my next question is, I notice or maybe I didn't notice that we have, what, 45 acres in our present landfill now? MR. MUDD' Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Were you thinking about going from there with the new one right off of that 45, or were you thinking about an altogether different place? MR. MUDD: Sir, it could be anything that we can find a site for that's mutually agreeable between the two counties. It doesn't necessarily have to be on its present site. It could be on its present site. It could be somewhere different. But as was stated by Mr. Robert Hauser, we're talking about the landfill proper of a little over 300 acres with a buffer of about 300 acres around that. What you cannot afford is all of a sudden somebody building right on top of the thing. That's where we find ourselves in Collier County. We have neighbors right over-- you look down the hill, and you've got houses sitting right there. You don't want to get yourself in that predicament. You want to have some vegetative screening, not only for the site process, but if there's any odor at all, you want to have some kind of screening on that issue, and you want it to be a pleasant-looking facility, a business-like facility. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: I think I talked to a couple of you before the meeting. It sounds good, but when you say "not in my backyard" -- that's what a lot of the residents are going to say. Even if we expand on what's there now, I'm sure there's some people here from Ortona, and they probably don't want it any bigger. There's people down at Muse that I'm sure if I say, "Well, we're going to put that down by the Muse area," then they're going to raise cane. So it's going to be something we're really going to have to discuss hard -- Page 19 July 30, 2001 MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: -- and decide what's best, and maybe it should be put up to the people, let them decide what to do with it. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. That's why we're having this discussion. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Right. I understand that. That's why we're here. Anyone else have anything? COMMISSIONER WARD: Yeah. I've got a few things. I'm Commissioner Ward. As part of the presentation, David had contacted me in the back and kind of gave a little history of how I got into it. Five years ago when I came on the board one of the issues that we needed to address at that time was our solid waste or was our landfill. It seems any direction that we go, we seem to be running into where it's going to cost Glades County money to either get back into the landfill or stay in the landfill or get out of the landfill business. One of the things that brought me to the table is that I was faced with spending quite a bit of Glades County money to close that landfill or to try to maintain and run that landfill for the next 50 years. That's basically what we project in Glades County. We're not in a position to where we're faced with doing anything for three years except coming up with money, which we can do. We're probably not wanting to, but we can do it. So what I was drawn into the table was -- and we're kind of getting a little bit -- we're stepping out into the future -- was to be able to utilize the air space that we have. Instead of closing down an 80-acre facility that has basically about 75 percent of its capacity left, we were faced with closing it down and not utilizing that space, where Collier County, on the other hand, was faced with in the next five to six years they've got to have something online to do. So in the little bit of discussion that I was in, it was that possibly they could use Glades County and utilize that space that we're not Page 20 July 30, 2001 going to utilize or looks like we're not going to utilize to kind of circumvent the problem or to kind of add some life to the problem that you have and lengthening it out for maybe three years to six years. That, in the longevity or the long term of the run, would give you time to put this joint venture into place, whether it be in our county or some other county or whether in your own county. So before we get too far into this, I would like to look at the immediate problem, the problem that you need that air space to slow down this process. Basically, when I was there, we looked at the landfill, and it looks like at your rate of dumping that you would be full in three years, which is not enough ample time to do what you've got to do. So, therefore, by using Glades County, if we can come to the dollar figure and the people of Glades County decide that that's what we want to do, then that would give you instead of three years, six years -- five to six years. Right or wrong? MR. MUDD: Pretty close, sir. COMMISSIONER WARD: It's pretty close. Okay. That would give us time -- if we could actually -- if we could actually work out all the details and cut that deal, then that lengthens your time for the long-range program, which we know that we've got to start working on it also today. That's what we're doing here, the long-range program, to where Glades County wants to get in -- Glades County has made the statement before "We don't want a regional landfill," and I think that's the position of the board. We don't want a regional landfill in Glades County, but is there room for a joint venture between us and Glades County? Absolutely. I believe that under the right conditions and all of the right matches in numbers. But the immediate thing is our landfill now because we're faced with spending some money to close that landfill and to build a transfer station, and we'll haul it somewhere. We'll have to make a deal where we're going to haul it, whether it goes to Okeechobee or Page 21 July 30, 2001 wherever it's going, versus if we're going to stay in the landfill business for our own garbage, and that's something that, again, we would have to address the taxpayers of Glades County. So that's kind of my position. I'm willing -- I don't want to get, so to speak, the cart before the horse. I want to look at what we have today, our problem, and that's our landfill. Can we use our problem to help you through your problem to where we can come to a solution at the end of the day that's good for Collier County as well as for Glades County? I know it's too early for any type of offers or numbers, but that's the direction that I would like to see us go before we actually get over into too much negotiating in the long run. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Well, I agree to a certain extent with you but, you know, there's other problems out there. I'm sure that Sarasota and the rest of the counties are probably in the same position you-all are in. I don't think we should put all of our eggs in one basket. Maybe if we're going to decide to do this, maybe we should go after RFPs or do something else. I mean, this is just me talking now. How does the rest of the board feel? This is just discussion. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I've got a few questions that I'd like to go over because the logistics of this are far-reaching and have much greater implications than what we've even touched on so far. First off, I'd just like to ask a couple of questions about your slide presentation. It was very nice. The transfer stations that you were showing in the presentation, are those presently existing in Collier County? MR. HAUSER: No, Commissioner. They're transfer stations in other locations. The first one is in Florida. The second one is outside of Florida. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: You would envision something like that as part of this venture should it come to fruition? MR. HAUSER: Yes, Commissioner. Page 22 July 30, 2001 COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Okay. Those transfer stations would be located most likely in Collier County? MR. HAUSER: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Under the land restrictions that you're suffering under now -- well, it doesn't take a lot of acreage, I guess, to build a transfer station. MR. HAUSER: For a nice transfer station, you're looking at 10 or 12 acres, and you can do it on a lot less land than that also and probably would be looking at the existing sites in Collier County to put those on. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Is there currently a bioreactor landfill, or is this a concept at this time? MR. HAUSER: There's actually -- right at this time there's approximately 10 or 12 of them around the United States that are actually operating. The DEP has just permitted one that's under construction up in the northern part of the state, which is actually being sponsored by the DEP and others and being worked on with the University of Florida and the University of Central Florida personnel involved to study it. There are several of them operating in Georgia. There's another one we've been heavily involved with in the design in North Carolina. Delaware -- there's been one in Delaware for a number of years that's been operating under that concept. There's a number of these sites that exist or that have been in. This wasn't a concept that suddenly developed full blown. There were little pieces of it that were kind of being developed. The enhanced gas production by adding water into it was something people were looking at. There were another group of people looking at how can we decompose the waste quicker and maybe mine the waste. Then you had others looking at stabilizing it earlier and others looking at taking advantage of the settlement. Page 23 July 30, 2001 What happened is all of these have been being looked at over the last ten years, and finally they were kind of all pulled together into one comprehensive package. These landfills and the work that was going on all shared common elements, and why not put them all together in one package. So there are bioreactive landfills around. You can see them. Most -- many of the new landfills that are coming onboard, and even old landfills, are being retrofitted to this type of technology. The EPA is now permitting them or allowing them under their solid waste rules. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Have they at this time entered into any kind of agreements as far as mining the materials out of these bioreactors? MR. HAUSER: No, sir. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: So that's something in the future? MR. HAUSER: It's something in the future. We don't know. In fact, one time about eight or nine or ten years ago Collier County had a pilot project looking at mining material. One of the problems was you could dig up -- and this is how these things came together. When you dug into an old landfill looking for the material that had really rotted out, you could process that and use it as cover material or soil material. It would have to be cleaned up, you know, because of the garbage. It's really acting like a giant anaerobic composter. What would happen is one section of the landfill would have a lot of water in it and was really rotted, and right next to it would be sections that would be completely dry, and you couldn't do anything with it. So they started realizing, well, if you're going to make decomposition go uniformly and evenly, you would have to have water uniformly and evenly controlled over the entire landfill, which, in mm, was exactly what the people tried to develop with enhanced Page 24 July 30, 2001 gas production of these things, to use the gas we're trying to do with, so that's how these elements all started to kind of come together into one package. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: On your current facilities, you say there's an outflow of wood products. What percentage do you think that would be right now in your landfills, wood products going back out into the community? MR. HAUSER: It's hard to say. It varies. There's various levels. A lot of the contractors will recover right at their construction sites dimensional lumber. There is a market for dimensional lumber that can be recovered out of these things. One of the things that occurs at these facilities is that when a large load of construction debris -- and you can see the containers that might be near a construction site containing this material, and they'll actually pick through and try to pull out the dimensional lumber. A lot of the other wood waste, old pallets and those types of things, sometimes they try to recover the pallets and restore them or refinish them. Other times they're ground up and used as wood chips or bulky materials, so that's going on right now. In terms of construction or demolition debris, there's a very, very high rate of recovery that's going on in those areas that have really targeted and gone after it in terms of using the inert material -- the concrete, the asphalt, the stone -- grinding that and reusing it and the wood material. Those are a couple of the major items that you find in the C&D streams. That's actually going on. COMMISSIONER JONES: I can understand your situation and your time element involved and your limited space that you have, but I think it would behoove the county if we were to look at other counties, too, that are also interested in this because it's become a common -- when I say "common," it's become a popular idea now for rural counties to be looked at real heavily for heavily populated Page 25 July 30, 2001 coastal counties, and this is going to be a trend in the future. Eighty-one percent of the population in the state lives on the coastline. Only 19 percent of us live inland. Some counties have signed rather lucrative deals for the coastal counties to come inland with their garbage. I don't feel comfortable enough in this area of county management to use our own judgment. So it would be preferable to me to go out with somebody who's familiar with landfill negotiations and -- I don't feel that this board -- I'm only speaking for myself, not the board. I don't feel that we should do this on our own without somebody's guidance or leadership. I'm not comfortable with the knowledge that I have. I know the board might want to -- COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I concur with that. One of the things that we know is going to be forever, at least as far as we know now, is technology hasn't risen to the point where we can dispose of our waste on the homesites. So we're forever going to be generating that until technology reaches the point that we no longer need these places, and I don't foresee -- I don't see that in the foreseeable future. One of the things that I want to make absolutely sure we safeguard is the fact that as long as people live in Glades County, they're going to be generating stuff that's going to have to be taken somewhere else. We don't want to paint ourself into a comer by filling up our own landfill. We recognize that we've got monitoring problems, and we also have logistical problems in maintaining and perpetuating our landfills. The one thing that we need to make sure of, though, before we enter into any venture is we've got the future of our county residents covered. I think it's just a natural step to -- before anything really gets down to really hard talks that there has to be some assurance that your plan, or whoever's plan that is coming in proposing this joint venture, that there is some plan that the area requires in order to carry the remaining items after our landfill is closed. Page 26 July 30, 2001 That area does, in fact, exist even perhaps in the form of a contract. Then we know absolutely that if we enter into a venture like this that at the point our landfill reaches capacity that there is immediately that other plan, the follow-up plan, ready to take place before we actually reach that point. That's one of the things that I'm looking for. But getting back to what Commissioner Jones said about -- I believe he was eluding to having some greater expertise than we have seated here on the board as some guidance for this board, and I would assume that you would be looking for that same expertise on your board. I concur 100 percent that we need to do that because we are not specialists in this area. Mr. Whidden, with all of the years that he's been in solid waste, I'm sure that he would feel more comfortable having professional guidance to evaluate a venture such as this to see if it really is something that can be done. But moreover we have to first, as you have done, protect our own county, and that's going to be the key to the whole thing. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely. Commissioner Mac'Kie for the record. What I couldn't resist jumping up here to say was that we -- I, anyway, wouldn't have anything to do and I don't believe our commission and I know our county would not have anything to do with a venture that somehow resulted in a degradation of what's here in Glades County. We have the highest respect for the beauty of this county, for the agricultural nature of this county. It's a jewel, and we don't think -- and I just had to say that we don't think we're the 81 percent, and we're from the coast, and we're looking for someplace to dump our problem. I just had to get up and say that. The only way this could possibly work is if there is some mutual benefit, if there is something that -- if we can work out a solution, if Page 27 July 30, 2001 we can be creative, and we certainly can't do it without the help of the experts. You can see we're already started down that road in looking for some of that help. But we're not interested in anything that isn't mutually beneficial to both counties, and we're really just here to start the exploration, just to begin to find out -- we've told our staff-- we've given them some really broad direction to go out and find the best answers and bring them back to us, and one of those possibilities that came up is the one that we're here talking about tonight. What I'm hoping is that you will, likewise, tell your staff, "Okay. Go talk to Collier County and talk to other counties. You know, get all of the information you can and come back and give us the best possible advice" because we are going to have to find a way to work together eventually, whether it's on a joint landfill or however we solve the problem. We have the same problem. We just happen to have different pieces of it. So if we can find a way to work together on it with a mutual respect and a mutual benefit, that's what we're here looking for. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Conceptually, it's not a bad plan. We all know that we're forever going to be generating stuff from the household and industries that's going to have to be dealt with. I think that it's incumbent upon us to find the best method of dealing with these things in the interest of not just our county and your county, but the state and future generations. COMMISSIONER WARD: Mr. Chairman, if you would, one of the things, too -- and, you know, this is my district. I'm really not at this time looking to expand what we have there. I'm only looking to utilize the air space that's there that in a short-term fix will get them out of their problem and Glades County out of their problem, and at the end of the day we make some money out of the deal. The long-range program, if we're headed that direction -- Page 28 July 30, 2001 certainly, I mean we're going to look at maybe a venture with maybe other counties or maybe it'll be Collier County. Certainly, I'm not looking for it to be there. If there's another area, we have vast property out in that area way out into the -- right across the line. You know, that would be more of an area that you might want to look at buying 500 or 600 or 700 acres to create something between Glades and Collier County. But, again, that's into the future of looking. We know we've got to address that because the six years will be here before we know it. But, again, the things that -- and, obviously, we would be nuts to sit here and try to negotiate a deal when we have no idea or no clue of what we're doing. I think that's why we'll hire consultants to get out there and try to cut some type of deal that would be mutual to them as well as us, and at the end of the day Glades County comes out the winners. So in that I'm not looking to expand, and I don't think the people in that area are looking to expand that 80-acre facility. I think we're looking at 40 acres -- 40 acres actually for sale. We've got, again, about 75 percent of that left as available space that we'll either close it up and do nothing with it and build a transfer station to haul it out, or we'll build a new cell and a new liner and continue to stay in the landfill business. So what I would like to see us do is, obviously, get some type of company to represent us and see us go in the short-term deal of coming up with some type of arrangement that would make it profitable for you as well as us, and certainly we're going to look at other options. We've already got another county that's already heard about this in the news and called in and said, "Hey, wait a minute. Let us talk." And you understand that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Of course. COMMISSIONER WARD: But at the same time maybe we can Page 29 July 30, 2001 work that deal out to where the short-term deal vents and gives you the time that you need for the long-range term. And then certainly after tonight's meeting in the news, we're going to start hearing from our constituents about regional landfills that we've heard before. But, again, I'm not looking at regional landfills. I'm looking at something that will benefit Glades County as well as one of our neighboring counties. Lee County did it with Hendry. Are they still in an actual joint venture? MR. HAUSER: Yes, they are. COMMISSIONER WARD: So they're still in an actual joint venture. Is it similar to the same thing? MR. WHIDDEN: Very successful. COMMISSIONER JONES: I'll ask them. COMMISSIONER WARD: And we're simply talking about -- and I think this is important too -- household garbage. Somebody said our garbage stinks no worse than yours and yours no worse than ours. We're not looking at getting into -- I think we're fixing to get a C&D landfill. I don't know that for sure, but certainly we've got one that's petitioned the county to come into the county, and that's under negotiations now. I would be concerned about gypsum board and things like that coming into there because they do create a lot of problems. In that area and about a mile and a half to the south of that, we have residents that we're very concerned about. We're going to do nothing to harm or damage anything that they have there. Again, we already have a landfill there. We'll be looking very closely at that, so we don't want to do anything there. With the mining in the area -- I don't know. Did you-all come through that direction? Did you see the mining, the sand mining? One day I kind of foresee beautiful houses around those lakes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. Page 30 July 30, 2001 COMMISSIONER WARD: So there's no area there for us to expand. Simply close out what we have there and move somewhere else if we're going to stay in the landfill business. It might be at that time that the people of Glades County wants to build a transfer station and joint venture with wherever you're going to haul yours. Or we've got the Okeechobee center over there. So there's a lot of different options out there, but the main thing now is let's get to the table and see what that one million cubic yards of air space is worth and see if Glades County wants to move forward in that area. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, I think you-all were asking each other the same kind of discussion questions that we would have at a Collier County board meeting. I think I'm getting a pretty good idea of where you are in terms of-- one, you have to ask what you can do short term in terms of your existing commissioners that you appointed now. You have a landfill, and you have X number of square feet of air space in there in which you have to meet your own needs, and would you be willing to venture with Collier, if it all worked out, and utilize some of that in the process. But ultimately I'm hearing you say -- and I don't know how your board feels -- that you want to close that side and ask yourself the bigger question of do we want to be in the landfill business. COMMISSIONER WARD: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER CARTER: And if you do, you're doing in my judgment, again, what we're doing. You go for professional advice and guidance as we have done in Collier along with staff to assess what would all of this look like and what kind of business would it put us in, and how would we build it state of the art, and would we be able to address all the environmental or community concern types of issues which all of us will face any time you have Page 31 July 30, 2001 this discussion. You're absolutely right. You'll have phone calls. Your phone calls will be this (indicating) high tomorrow on your desk, and it's just the nature of having this kind of a conversation this evening. But rightly so; it is important for us to know the feeling of your community. COMMISSIONER WARD: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER CARTER: As Commissioner Mac'Kie has spoken, we need to know what you're thinking, both short term and long term. We do not want to be an unwelcome partner with anybody in anything that we do. We all want to work in the best interest of both counties and communities. So I think it's healthy. I think the discussion is beneficial to us. And if there's anything that we can answer here this evening, we'll be glad to do so, or any other comments we would be happy to share. But I am pleased with what you're saying. In my judgment you're asking all the right questions so that we both know what we're going to do. It seems you'd like to move to a shorter term discussion type of process, and that would be your most immediate kind of consideration here if we begin to read things correctly. COMMISSIONER WARD: Well, that's what brought myself to the table was the discussion that we have had that David has brought to us over the years, "Guys, you know, you need to figure out what we're going to do here." DEP is breathing down our neck the same as he is your necks of what are we going to do here. So I think that's the direction that we need to go. You've got a problem. I don't remember-- if I remember the numbers right, there was about 300 tons a day. Is that right? Was it 300 tons a day going into Collier County, and they were looking at venting off about half of that? MR. WHIDDEN: No, they were looking at -- we were talking about perhaps -- Page 32 July 30, 2001 COMMISSIONER CARTER: We have a lot of garbage, sir, but not that much. MR. MUDD: That figure -- right now we get about 1200 tons a day into the Collier County landfill of which about 800 goes to the hill or goes to the landfill site and gets buried. COMMISSIONER WARD: Basically one of the things that we were looking at is on the short-term deal that they were wanting -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- to maybe bring about half of that household garbage and splitting it. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER WARD: You would take half, and we would take half. That would give you the three to roughly five or six years. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER WARD: Where you would be full in three years, now you're suddenly looking at three to six -- or five to six years for a long term -- a little bit longer program to decide where you're going to go as well as where we're going. MR. MUDD: In the present capability of that landfill, yes, sir, in that Cell 6 that you got to see. COMMISSIONER WARD: So what-- MR. RIDER: I think before we get-- COMMISSIONER WARD: So what I'd like to see-- MR. RIDER: -- to -- THE COURT REPORTER: Wait, wait, wait. One at a time, please. COMMISSIONER WARD: What I would like to see us do is move towards sitting down at the table and letting our side as well as your side come up with some type of plan to where we're going to fill that as well as we're going to build a transfer station -- and we know that's for us -- to get ready to move off of that site and some of those Page 33 July 30, 2001 type of numbers and things like that. And then in that conversation we can start looking at the long-range program to see if Glades County and Collier County wants to move forward in the future. That's what I was going to say. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Before we go ahead and approve it as a concept -- and that's what we're being asked to do today is approve the concept. Before we get too far into this, we need that assurance, and that assurance to me is going to be someone coming forth with another area of this county that you're proposing to put another landfill. We can't evaluate where we're going to go with this until we know where you're proposing to go, and the people of this county won't know where to go with it until they know where you're proposing to go with your larger landfill. And, likewise, absent any kind of guarantee of a larger landfill -- in two and a half or three years we fill ours up and somebody says, "Sorry, we couldn't find any land in Glades County. Nobody will sell us any." Then we're right back-- we're in worse shape than where we started. So there's got to be some kind of assurance up front that you have, in fact, found a location or that you perhaps had an option on the location. "We've got a location that we can talk about to see if it does fit into that area of the county and if it's acceptable to this board and the people of the county." You know, absent that, there can be no approval on anything. The concept, yes, we can say it sounds like a solid concept, but to really move forward with anything we can't move forward until we know that that other option exists. MR. OLLIFF: Good evening. I'm Tom Olliff. I'm the county manager from Collier County. Collier County's facing some solid waste issues, and I think Glades County is obviously facing some solid waste issues too. We have a whole heck of a lot more questions than we have answers at Page 34 July 30, 2001 this point, and it sounds like you do too. All we are really here asking for is some conceptual approval from you to allow Mr. Whidden and your staff-- and if you decide to go through a private consultant, that's fine. We would be happy to work with whomever represents you. But in Collier County I don't want to get ahead of my board. I'm not out negotiating deals with other counties unless my board knows about it. And so we are just simply here to see if there is enough on the table from your perspective for us as staff to continue to push this forward and try and get some of those questions answered for you. For it to be a proposal that you're going to approve, I know it's got to be in your best business interest. It's got to be in the best interest of our constituents, or you're not going to approve it. The deal's got to be the same way on our end. It's got to be good for the constituents of Collier County, both financially and from a solid waste disposal standpoint. But if there is a possibility -- and if you see that there is a possibility of there being that mutually beneficial win/win type of solution out there, there's enough on the table, I think, that our recommendation is that you direct your staff to at least continue to work with us. We'll try and flush out some of those questions for you and bring you back as much fact as we can to base those decisions on, and it may not go anywhere. COMMISSIONER WARD: True. MR. OLLIFF: We may end up dealing with our own solid waste disposal issues in Collier County, and there are options for that. But if there is a possibility that there is a win/win that is better than if Glades County deals with their own and if Collier County deals with our own, then I think that's worth pursuing. The worst that we could come out of that with is we would waste a little bit of Mr. Whidden's time. But I think at the end of that Page 35 July 30, 2001 you would probably at least have some answers to a number of your solid waste questions, as well, that would help you make whatever decisions you might make in the future. So I think we're not asking for you to buy into a bioreactive landfill concept. What we're asking you to buy into is some direction to your staff just to continue working with Mr. Mudd and myself and continue to try to get you some answers. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. We have a consultant on staff, Dale Malita. He was very-- I guess he was one of the main fellows in negotiations with Chambers in Okeechobee some 12 or 15 years ago. Dale, could you come up and give us some pointers or, you know, help us out here a little bit. MR. MALITA: Dale Malita. I'm a consultant for the county. I think that what you're doing is something that I've talked to David and many of you a long time about. You have to make some decision to do something with your landfill -- for a long time. But, Commissioners, as your local government consultant, I'm only addressing you in your position because I work for you. My first impression of the data that was provided to me is that a lot of time and expense and work has already been put into this informational meeting, and I think that's really true. But, first of all, as always, I'm going to suggest that if you're going to make a decision, I urge you to make an informed decision. Today you've been presented basically with the pros, and it's only from one position of the many different alternatives out there today for Glades County. The old question is, can you remain in the county landfill business with only your 20 to 25 tons of solid waste? That answer is probably only if you have the wherewithal to subsidize your operation with funds other than what the landfill generates. This is nothing new because we've been talking about it for Page 36 July 30, 2001 some time. We knew that financial crunch was out there and, as you know, I've advocated some type of move to do something to bring that together for a long time. The only consideration that I suggest to you is that you be sure that what you ask for is what you want and is this the best alternative out there for the county and its residents. If this meeting today -- and I do not feel that way -- was to be considered a freight train under full steam and you're ready and willing to move forward by interlocal agreement or other administrative agreements, I suggest you move in that direction because it can certainly be done quickly without a lot of muss, fuss, and too much bother by interlocal rather than other ways. However, if you feel that you need to know what other alternatives might be out there, then I might suggest that you offer an RFI, a request for information, or an RFQ, request for qualifications, asking for alternatives to your present landfill operation be submitted to you. By doing this -- and I will refer back to what Mr. Giesler said about Okeechobee -- we did not have the money there when I was the county manager there to, quite honestly, hire the specialist needed to do it. It's not a cheap thing to do. I mean, you're going to be spending an awful lot of money. In the RFQ we required everybody that proposed -- because we basically had made the decision that this is somewhere in the direction that we wanted to go -- these people that proposed put up the money for your specialist, and you hired or picked them and hired them. So by asking -- you might be surprised at the responses you get back, and you might well find out that the present pathway does best suit your needs. When small rural counties are seeking regional wastewater system and landfill expansions that serve highly populated coastal areas, it tells you just how bad rural economy really is, and the rural areas should always keep their options open and Page 37 July 30, 2001 maximize their resources. That's my only concern, that you look at everything that you've got before you. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Thank you. Anyone else? I think if we're interested in going ahead with this, I think we should have a consultant meet with them along with David. And as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Malita's done our county a good job in the last several years he's worked for us. Okeechobee is right there. I mean, they can vouch for him that he's helped them tremendously. Mike, I might as well ask you what your feelings are. That's Mike Rider, our attorney. I had to put that in there. MR. RIDER: If you're going to get a consultant, you need to do with the consultant exactly what you're considering doing with this whole project, and that is to get a consultant through RFPs, to get a consulting firm that specializes in this type of work, and then sit down with you -- before we ever meet with them again, let them just sit down with you and let you know where you are and where you can go and what you should be considering. You really can't run a landfill on 20 tons day; you know that. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: I have another question. Since Dale Malita is already our consultant and on our payroll, do we have to go out if we decide not to? MR. RIDER: Well, no, you don't, but you've got several other engineering firms on consulting status. But what you need to do is make sure that whoever you choose is a specialist in garbage. You want to get somebody that that is their whole deal. You don't want to get a surveyor to give you advice on landfill issues. This is big business. This is big business, guys. This is forever. You really need to get somebody that specializes in it. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Lord knows we need the money. We're going to discuss in our budget to bring our people up to the minimum salaries around the area. That's where we stand. We need Page 38 July 30, 2001 the money but also we need to make sure our citizens are taken care of too. Okay. What's our next move? COMMISSIONER WARD: You need a concensus of the board to move forward with what we're -- CHAIRMAN GIESLER: We need a consensus of the board to move forward on -- I would like to get a consultant on board and then -- yes, could you come up, please. THE COURT REPORTER: Identify yourself, please. MR. KRASOWSKI: Hello, Commissioners. My name is Bob Krasowski. I'm a resident of Collier County. Is it appropriate that I speak? CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Yes. MR. KRASOWSKI: Thank you very much. I appreciate your hospitality. I'm with a group called Zero Waste Collier County, and we are very interested in what happens to the waste that we generate. I found it interesting that maybe we could work in a joint county-to- county project with your interests, but from what we understood it would be after Collier County had reduced whatever and removed whatever from the waste stream including horticultural materials to be composted, organic materials to be composted, all recycled materials, and then a redirection of C&D materials. We've been working on the issue in Collier County for quite some time. We have a consultant, and I caution you that just because you get a consultant, it doesn't mean you're going to have -- you're going to receive accurate information all the time. Consultants have their friends as well. So I'm kind of-- you know, I just have to ponder what this whole arrangement means to us in Collier County, and I wish the best for you. This presentation I didn't see before getting here, although I've made every effort to stay up on this issue, so I don't have -- you know, I can't comment very much on that. But it seems a lot more Page 39 July 30, 2001 than what was initially implied in the joint effort here. So I'm a little baffled by this. But I think from what I've heard or from what you said that you're on the right track as far as protecting your own interests from the various things that have been mentioned. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: What were your expectations of this venture? MR. KRASOWSKI: Well, I thought it was whatever materials could not be recycled, reclaimed, reduced, extracted from the waste stream in Collier County would then come up here to be added to what you're putting in your landfill which would give you the volume that you need to function at a better level. I suppose you need more materials to kind of spread out the cost of operating the landfill. So that's the answer to that. I wasn't expecting where there was all these diagrams of stuff coming up here and then other stuff going back to Collier County. It was sort of like a one-way -- only those things we couldn't handle, you know, would come here. We do have three years, give or take, on our existing landfill cell, but we have another cell, Sites 1 and 2, that -- if that's lined we have, like, a 25-year option right there at the existing landfill, although the citizens don't want -- in that area, you know, they're on the verge of-- CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Can I ask you where do you stand on this issue? MR. KR~SOWSKI: I'm a private citizen -- CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. MR. KRASOWSKI: -- who's been following the solid waste issue for 15 or 20 years. I've been involved in organizations that are critical and against incineration because of the cost and the environmental problems with them. I'm just -- you know, I have no connection with any business interests. I'm just a citizen of Collier Page 40 July 30, 2001 County and a citizen of Florida. Like I said, the organization Zero Waste that I'm with is national. It's also international. I might suggest to you that our university structure here has a lot of experts that don't cost a whole lot of money that might be able to provide you with baseline information and help in identifying what your options might be. Because the consultants, many of them, are very expensive. There's also other organizations throughout the country that provide help, The Institute For Local Self-Reliance. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: So you're wanting to keep the garbage in Collier County? Is that what you're wanting to do? MR. KRASOWSKI: What I'm wanting to do -- COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I think what I heard, unless I was mistaken, was that you have another cell. You could open it. It would take you 25 years. But your group doesn't want the cells or your landfill to get any bigger. Is that right? MR. KRASOWSKI: Well, the citizens around there -- we're sensitive to the citizens around the area. What I'd like to do is to recycle as much as we can in Collier County. Okay. I want to see you do the same thing. I want to see you recycle as much of the material as you can. I think everybody should compost whatever they can. Maybe it would be as you're saying, to your advantage to have some people come in here and explain to you what your options are. I visited your landfill earlier today. I could see where there were a lot of opportunities there to change things. So I concur with your position that you should investigate what your options are. Something I really would be interested in doing is when you place this item on your agenda for discussion amongst the people in your community to revisit and see what their interests are as far as relocating the landfill. It would be to our advantage in Collier County to work with you to Page 41 July 30, 2001 handle the material that need to be handled. But I certainly don't support just sending all the garbage up here. It's real expensive. It's like -- it would cost us over $50 a ton, and I don't think that factors in whatever tipping fee that you guys would want, and right now we're paying, like, $25 a ton. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. So this might be an issue that you take back to their commission meeting? MR. KRASOWSKI: Sure. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. MR. KRASOWSKI: Should I not come back here? CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Oh, I didn't say that. I wouldn't say that. MR. KRASOWSKI: Okay. I didn't want to complicate your life, but thank you for the opportunity to speak today. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Thank you. Mr. Malita -- COMMISSIONER JONES: Mr. Malita had also mentioned to us the possibility that you just mentioned about us researching other alternatives too. I just want to ask one question before you leave today. Who's going to bear the cost of this consultant? COMMISSIONER WARD: MR. RIDER: Yeah. COMMISSIONER JONES: consideration personally. COMMISSIONER WARD: It's all in negotiations. That's a major point of We just have to get them to the point to negotiate. That's where we've got to get them. MR. MALITA: Mr. Chairman, I just want to clarify something the attorney said. I'm here representing Craig A. Smith & Associates Governmental Services. There's no engineering involved with what I do whatsoever, so I wanted to make that clear. I am here to assist you as a board or your staff. COMMISSIONER WARD: Absolutely. Page 42 July 30, 2001 CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. Any other comments? MR. RIDER: Yes. Mr. Chairman, it always bears repeating, but you know it well. The existing landfill in Glades County has a restriction against any out-of-county garbage coming in. It's not an ordinance. It's a contractual restriction that we agreed to about 15 years ago when we acquired the property. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: With whom is the contract? MR. RIDER: Lykes Brothers. So in order for any of this to move forward really past second base, anyway, that will have to be addressed, and it's much too premature for any public discussion of that restriction at this time. But just to remind you that it's there. COMMISSIONER WARD: Mr. Chairman, if you will, our attorney brings up a very valid point, and we recognized that early on. It's about that (indicating) many words in the paragraph, and we looked at it. We thought that it would be moot to actually try to move forward without some type of confirmation from Lykes itself. David and myself had a meeting with Lykes Brothers and basically told them kind of the surrounding concept of what we were looking at, and that was to close that landfill out. But without some type of informal agreement that we could move forward in these negotiations -- that if they were absolutely going to be dogmatic that they were not going to lift that, then it really probably wasn't something that we wanted to pursue and to move forward on. So at the end of the meeting we got basically the go-ahead to say, "Okay. Explore the idea. Enter into some type of negotiations. See what's in it for Glades County. See what's in it for the citizens." So we did go that far to say, "Would you think about the idea of us moving it forward?" That's what brought us into where we're at today. So you're absolutely right. The restriction is there. It's something that will have to be dealt with along with everything else as we move forward. But I, for one, say that we probably need to just Page 43 July 30, 2001 turn it over and get a consultant to start and David to start negotiations with their people and move forward. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Is it fair to Collier County to spend all this money and come to find out that we can't even do it? Now, which comes first? Do we get consent from Lykes that we can go ahead with this, or do we let them go ahead and spend all the money that they've been spending and then come to find out that we can't do it? MR. WHIDDEN: Mr. Chairman-- CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Yes, sir. MR. WHIDDEN: -- Mr. Lykes conveyed to Mr. Ward and myself that Lykes Brothers cannot make a decision until they know fully what our agreement will be between the two counties. They want to know what we propose to do formally before they give their consent or their dissent. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Are you willing to spend thousands more dollars and then find out we can't do it? That's what we're here MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: You are? MR. OLLIFF: Well, in order for us to have -- of all of the options that we're chasing down, they're all expensive. I mean, in order to be able to come to a decision point on any of these things -- we looked at resource recovery plants years ago, and we spent thousands of dollars looking at resource recovery plants. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: So you-all are willing to negotiate with us and get our consultant on board and decide -- we decide what we want, and you'll go along with all of that, and then we go to Lykes and they say, no, we -- MR. OLLIFF: Well, I think there are certain things that when we sit down with your staff we will put together a timeline, and I Page 44 July 30, 2001 think certain things can happen concurrently, hopefully. But we will decide what are key decision points along the way, and if we need to come back to this board for direction in order to be able to negotiate those kinds of details, then we will. COMMISSIONER WARD: Mr. Chairman, also, you know, in that we're going to have to create a buffer around this deal. I mean, that was one of the ideas or one of the concepts there that Lykes was concerned about. You know, obviously, they just as soon see it close at 25 percent, closed out, then to be closed out at 100 percent. So their main concern is going to be that buffer around it. There's probably going to be some additional land that we'll probably have to purchase from Lykes Brothers to make sure nothing's ever done on that area to where those homes and those citizens in that area are first and foremost protected. So all those things have got to be worked out, and the monetary part of it that Glades County is going to accept to where we can all make them an offer -- so all of it has to go through the negotiations before we can even get to the table. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: So we've got a rich uncle; right? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Now -- CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Would you be willing to help us with paying for our consultant? MR. OLLIFF: We can talk to your staff about that. We'll have to sit down and decide what it is the consultant's hours estimations are and what his hourly cost is and what the estimate is. We would be happy to talk to you about it. The long and short of it is, we've been doing this solid waste thing for a long, long time as I'm sure you have, and none of the decisions are easy. Every one of them has a lot of hurdles to it. We just feel like this is an option that at least is worth chasing. We're willing to work with you to the end to see if it's beneficial for both of Page 45 July 30, 2001 US. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: In that case, we might have other options too. You never know what's going to happen. COMMISSIONER JONES: Hypothetical situation -- CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. COMMISSIONER JONES: Hypothetical situation, if another county were to approach us with the same proposal, I think this board should be receptive to whatever their proposal is. MR. OLLIFF: I do too. I think-- COMMISSIONER JONES: I'm not shutting you off, and I'm not giving you up, but I'm just saying if that were to occur, I think it would behoove this board to look at that. MR. OLLIFF: I can tell you that we're chasing other options as well. COMMISSIONER JONES: Sure. You should be. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I believe that what we need to do at this point is to direct our staff. If we believe that this is a viable concept, then our staff needs to be directed to start the communication with Collier County staff, keep us informed, and at the same time, as Mr. Rider has indicated, if we're going to pursue a consultant, then we need to send out the RFPs before we make any decisions on a consultant. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Right. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We also need that input not just from the consultant, but also from our staff as to what we need to expect from the consultant, what we're looking for. But conceptually it's worth looking at. There's no guarantees it will be with Collier County or any other county, but conceptually it sounds like something that we can explore. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: So you want to give staff direction to Page 46 July 30, 2001 go ahead and go after the RFP for a consultant but in the meantime work with Collier County? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That's the recommendation. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Members of the board-- MR. RIDER: Mr. Chairman, we need Dale Malita's help from the get-go. Even to think about RFPs, we don't have the people to prepare the RFP in the first place. COMMISSIONER WARD: We've actually got him on a retainer. MR. RIDER: Yeah, but Dale's done all of this. I'm not sure a motion tonight to proceed with the concept is really -- it's premature. But we could have -- between David and Dale and myself and you, we could have a motion ready for you to adopt and take board action at the meeting on August 14th, and it would say, without making a commitment, that we agree to the following: One, move forward with the concept; No. 2, direct staff to work with Collier County staff; three, go out with RFPs for a consultant and so forth. And then have a four-pronged board action motion ready for your consideration at the next day meeting. We can do that. We don't -- we haven't really thought through enough right now to even move in that direction. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. So then if we go out with RFPs after our next board meeting -- I'm trying to figure out when our next meeting would be. That would be the 14th. We would have to advertise probably three weeks or two weeks. COMMISSIONER JONES: Two. MR. RIDER: Dale's going to tell us about that. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: That would move to our night meeting, which would be the last of August sometime. We could do it sometime in September. MR. RIDER: Don't scrunch yourself up into a timeline here. Page 47 July 30, 2001 We've got to get this right. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We've got time. MR. RIDER: We've got time. But the fourth prong on that is going to be how to finance this consultant who's going to charge you twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars off the top of my head. COMMISSIONER JONES: Well, the people from Collier County came to recognize the poverty in Petticoat Junction, so you might come with some -- COMMISSIONER WARD: All of that will be in negotiations. All of that will be in the negotiations. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, again, Mr. Chairman and your fellow commissioners from your county, on behalf of our board and our staff, we thank you for the opportunity to be here this afternoon. We look forward to the discussions that take place. I would not consider us a rich uncle, but a wise uncle. We look forward to this opportunity as we open a threshhold for further communications and discussion. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN GIESLER: Okay. We appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? We're adjourned. There being no further business for the good of the County, the workshop and meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 5:49 pomo Page 48 July 30, 2001 BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL JAMES D. CARTER, Ph.D., CHAIRMAN These minutes approved by the Board on ~-l/- 0 / , as presented or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING, INC., BY MARGARET A. SMITH, RPR Page 49