Loading...
10/15/2024 Draft MINUTES OF THE COLLIER COUNTY EAST OF 951 AD HOC COMMITTEE MEETING Naples, Florida, October 15, 2024 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, the Collier County East of 951 in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 7:00 PM in REGULAR SESSION at Heritage Bay Government Services Center, 15450 Collier Blvd, Naples, Florida, 34120 with the following members present: Mark Teaters, Sr., Chairman Robert Raines, Vice Chair Michael Ramsey Kim Ellis Christina Aguilera (Absent) Rae Ann Burton Aaron Zwiefel (Absent) Also present: Parker Klopf, Staff Liaison Kari Ann Hodgson, PE Director, Solid Waste Public Utilities Earl Lightcap, Community Member 1. Pledge of Allegiance 2. Roll Call Quorum established. 3. Approval of Minutes from Previous Meeting ▪ Minutes from previous meetings, Parker corrected the majority of issues, the main one being name corrections. Listed as draft minutes, available to be viewed by anyone. Once signed off and established that they are rectified minutes, they will be uploaded and marked as non-draft minutes. ▪ Mike Ramsey mentioned “I read through all the minutes, the July minutes. That's what I would be looking for. That was really good. If I had to have this for reference to go back and write stuff or come up with the ideas the committee discussed, that was good. Very good. That's what I would be looking for. The August minutes is a skim job, but it's okay for the August minutes because we never addressed any real issues East of 951. We spent a lot of time talking about non-growth issues. However, the one thing that was important for East of 951 was the Sheriff’s comment that there was a strong possibility he would put a substation at station 74.” ▪ Mr. Ramsey made motion to approve July 16th minutes and Mr.Raines seconded ▪ Carried unanimously. ▪ Ms. Ellis made motion to approve August 20th minutes Mr. Raines seconded ▪ Carried unanimously. 4. Housekeeping stuff ▪ Kim motioned to go back to 6pm meeting time ▪ Ms. Ellis made motion and Mr.Raines seconded ▪ Carried 4-1 ▪ Mr.Teaters asked If moved back to 6pm can we still go up to 9pm? Mr.Klopf “Yes,if absolutely needed. ▪ Motion to recognize and support all who were impacted as a result of the recent hurricanes and a special recognition to all first responders and power companies who worked tirelessly during this tragedy. ▪ Mr. Raines made motion Ms. Ellis seconded, carried unanimously. ▪ Mr.Teaters referenced a spreadsheet given to members on topics and dates spoken of,original points. ▪ Mr.Teaters suggested starting the next meeting to do a round table and work on the topics and bringing in experts to build what to bring to the Board of County Commissioners. ▪ Big Cypress Basin-sending questions to Hydrologists. Asked Mr. Ramsey to put together a list of what we want. ▪ Mr.Klopf “When are we expecting them?” Mr.Teaters “December. Do we want a meeting in December? ▪ CCPS joining the January 2025 meeting 5. Lifespan of the Landfill Presentation - Kari Ann Hodgson, PE Director, Solid Waste Public Utilities ▪ Moved February of 2019 when the director position for Solid Lease was opened in Collier County ▪ Worked in trash all her life. ▪ Managed contracts,airspace ▪ Worked for government whole life as well as studied governments ▪ Ran landfills, designed landfills. Treated contaminated groundwater. Treated the leachate. Built landfill gas systems. Ran a MERC, which is a material resource facility, and managed contracts for transferring over 40 million tons of waste all around Baltimore County, out of state, in state, and to a waste to energy facility as well. ▪ Have closed landfills ▪ Engineer - Collier County Landfill ▪ A bit about the history of Collier County Landfill. It's about 310 acres, 184 acres are for landfilling. ▪ In 1974 is when the county commissioners purchased this plot of land for a landfill. ▪ In 1995, the county entered into a public-private partnership with Waste Management to operate a landfill, a life of site agreement where they take full financial responsibility and capital costs for this landfill. ▪ In 2008, the county did a mining project. They mined about 10 acres, about 20 feet high. It was more or less to reclaim some lead contamination,used to be a shooting range for police officers. They were able to reclaim some airspace. ▪ In 2010 infamous odors of the landfill ▪ They implemented a landfill gas to energy system where they put in the system to collect the gas. They also removed drywall from the permits. ▪ About the gas-to-energy facility, there's five CAT engines ▪ For garbage, the county is working up into two service districts for garbage collection. Naples is one, and then the rest is Immokalee and Ave Maria. All the waste from Ave Maria and Immokalee speaks to our second guiding principle, diversion. Divert all of that waste out of the county. Have a contract with the landfill, Okeechobee sending about 30,000 tons a year there to Okeechobee. ▪ In 2017, there was something that was called the China Sword. China said, America, we don't want your garbage anymore. Because they found most of the recycling we were sending them was garbage. It wasn't actually clean, recyclable material. ▪ Recycling needs to be an economic circular economy ▪ Glass is still the hardest thing to recycle ▪ Operations-Scalehouse, Hazardous material drop off,Gas to energy facility ▪ Diversity of people to make it work (ex. CPA,Engineers,Marketing,etc.) ▪ Sorting- Glades County landfill ▪ Mulching operations-state requires 6inches daily cover, 50% dirt and 50 % mulch mix ▪ Collier County is one of the only counties that has reached a state recycling goal. Hit 75% which is the state goal for three years, but we've been named in the top five for four years, out of 67 counties. Ranked it in the top five. Award-winning programs for recycling. No other county has recycling drop-offs that can drop off almost anything for free. ▪ COVID kind of increased everything, it added 2%. Land about 300,000 tons of garbage a year. We recycle about 36,000 tons of garbage a year, and that 36,000 is just curbside. 30,000 tons a year, and the hazardous waste that's brought into our center is that we're able to divert and get into the right place for disposal. ▪ Only recycling to take foam, cannot be placed in yellow top bins. ▪ Batteries for fire safety. 1,000 tons a year. ▪ North of the landfill, 150 acres that Solid Waste owns that it cannot be a landfill. Looking to be a sorting operation ▪ Looking to put out an RFP for renewable gas, we do have a TECO gas line that is close by, it doesn't have to be TECO, but that is another renewable energy that can be made from landfilling and a benefit that can help out the gas at the landfill. Questions: Mr.Teaters asked: ▪ Do we know the cost to run the landfill? Yes. ▪ Was that in the decision making for budgeting for all these different things that are coming along, the new initiatives and stuff like that through the commissioners? Yes. So when our landfill tipping fees are set, our landfill tipping fees cover a few things. One, the cost to run the landfill. Two, the cost for any of our programs and services, and three, our capital budget. ▪ Who's actually doing the recycling now? Yes. It's all part of the agreement with police management for the landfill. ▪ What's the breakdown rate of all of the material that's in there? Food and paper and all this stuff? The goal with any landfill is to get 50 to 75 percent compaction. Every year, the landfill is surveyed. ▪ What about the landfill mining and stuff like that? Is it going to be possible to extend the life of a landfill by going out there and just starting to take chunks of it? A pilot study would need to be conducted first and it would be my recommendation. We have a closed landfill in Immokalee. That landfill's small. If I said I was gonna mine a landfill, which is something I've never done, that I would say is completely a feasible sized landfill to try and pilot study mine on. Much more than the one that's on White Lake. ▪ What about the public-private partnerships for some of the specialized? So a couple things about the technology when it comes to the garbage industry. I've been for 20 years. The only technology I've ever seen that is economically feasible, because it has to be economically feasible, is wasted energy. I have never, ever, ever in 20 years seen anything come that has been successful. ▪ Are you familiar with that technology? A landfill is essentially a bioreactor. A bioreactor is when you introduce liquids into a landfill to increase the breakdown of waste. It has not been proven to be economically feasible. Mr. Earl Lightcap asked: ▪ 1.) With the technologies coming on, and the liabilities with found buildings and all that stuff with lithium batteries, how are you addressing the, not just lead acid batteries, but do you let them be fired and don't leave a problem with that? We've already met with the fire departments quite a few times over battery safety in general, getting those messages out to the public. We actually also put some containers in our recycle centers so that if the firefighters have to report to a battery fire, they can put the damaged battery in a locked container at our recycling centers. ▪ 25 years for a permit for a new landfill? I guess it's 20, 25 years, isn't it? Where is the new landfill going and what is the schedule for that?That's a great question as well. So 2059 is the year that right now we see the landfill would be built in capacity based on, again, some of those factors we talked about and population, we do also consider the population growth. We use the growth model that the county uses for the AUIR. The same options exist for Collier County that exist for any county. Any options to expand laterally, which have already been done. There are options always to expand horizontally, which are limited here. There are options to send out of county. There are options to invest in technology, such as, again, the only proven one we've seen is Oasis Energy Technology. ▪ So there's no plan for another landfill in this district? Well, let me add this to it too. A new landfill hasn't been permitted in 30 years. Finding just a fresh piece of dirt to build a landfill on. I don't see that happening in any county because I haven't in 30 years. You can see a waste of energy permitted, I think, before you see a landfill permitted. ▪ So it's not taking anything from what's existing. It's just reducing it. What's coming in? Yes Mike Ramsey: ▪ The first question is, you're bringing in 300,000 tons a year of landfill material. You're getting a 50 to 70% compaction rate. That's decomposition and deterioration? That's compaction, straight compaction. ▪ With the material states? With the material states, yeah. So the typical rule of thumb is five passes with a compactor, and that's going to get you the compaction rates. ▪ Is that the lifespan determination? Is it how high you can go or how much you can collect? Yes, so that's interesting. ▪ The Collier County Landfill is the central receiving area for the whole county, for everybody, except vegetarians. Curbside vegetative comes to us, but contractors can go wherever they like. ▪ The facility at the end of Camp Keys on Oil well is project element. So the government owns the Camp Keys property, it's referred to as, and we have a lease with the forest soil builders there. All of the hurricane debris is taken there, vegetative, all the vegetative is taken there. The construction demolition, as we call it, goes to Okeechobee. So any excess waste that we get also goes there. We have a contract with them and a property lease with forest soil builders. ▪ Are there other vegetative private businesses out there taking I’ve never had it i'll do this for me or something okay so is it valuable to have the product Recyclers? Is it valuable to have a market economy? Yes. It doesn't impact our operation. We don't have too much coming in. We don't have too little coming in. I don't have any concerns for the way vegetation is managed in Collier County. ▪ As long as you keep it out of the main landfill, you have space that can be extended. Yes, so one of them, when we move, as we're developing our resource recovery park, we'll go to the landfill. Our mulching operation, that's another thing we're going to put on that property. We'll put that operation back there because, again, we'll extend the landfill vertically. ▪ So it kind of helps having a vegetation operation because it provides you with the decomposing soil that's created from it. It's a steady source. Yes. Soil that's created from it. It's a steady source. Yes. ▪ It's interesting that waste management does not have a C and D line here. Is it because of space? So, just so everybody understands that C&D is construction and demolition. When you take a building down, most of that can be sorted and recycled. But it's hand intensive, labor intensive. It's done by hand on a belt. People do it, not machines. And it's nasty and it's messy and it's dangerous. And it has to have a water retention system. ▪ Do we get credit for it? We get credit for anything that's recycled. So anything that they pull out to recycle, we get credit for it. ▪ The incinerator is interesting. Any future for that here? Or is it still kind of stigmatized? That's a huge price tag. Is it stigmatized in Collier County? I don't know. Air pollution issue. ▪ Do you have any plans to try to associate the vegetative mulching component with the solid waste cakes coming out of Clark County water and sewer? Oh, say it one more time, I'm sorry. It's the organic leftover from Cartesian water. The biosolids. Yes, the biosolids. ▪ Where do the biosolids go now? Right now, they're going to Okeechobee Landfill, and they can also go to a facility called Synegril. Some go to Synegril, which is in Pensacola. ▪ Is it expensive to send waste out of county? It's a very, very expensive option to send waste out of county. Mr. Teaters asked: ▪ How many years does the Okeechobee landfill have? The Okeechobee landfill is huge. ▪ We used to take out a lot of plastic. Where's that going? We transfer plastic out to Okeechobee. 5. Committee Recommendations Update ▪ Next Meeting November 19, 2024 ▪ Starting project to take point of interest to the Board of Commissioners 6. Adjourn Time adjourned: 8:56 PM. Collier County East of 951 Ad Hoc Advisory Committee _______________________________________ Mark Teaters, Sr., Chairman These minutes were approved by the Chairman of the East of 951 Committee on _______________________________, (check one) as submitted _______ or as amended ______. NOTE: Get the word out to the public to attend. Check on options for a public Zoom meeting.