The decade old Solid Waste Advisory Committee was reconvened a few weeks ago ostensibly to satisfy concerns raised over the expensive repair of a few pipes damaged by a third party vendor but is that really the reason? During the most recent meeting which can be viewed at Coos Media Center committee chairman, Martin Abst seems equally confused as the repair costs will be reimbursed by insurance but it becomes clear that liaison, Cam Parry and outside special interests like Pete Smart of Waste Connections would like the committee to consider another direction for the facility, namely privatizing it to the benefit of Waste Connections. At one point, Parry actually asks the committee to consider turning the facility into a full recycling center, shutting down the incinerator and shipping our trash via rail to an Eastern Oregon landfill.

Kudos to Abts, effectively a lone voice of calm and reason, for reminding the committee of the long history of success at the Beaver Hill Solid Waste facility, of the potentially high closure costs and the danger of a waste monopoly forming in Coos County (not to mention the damage it could do to the independent trash haulers). Phil Thompson was present observing the meeting and had this to say. “Martin Abts is the only one on that committee who is looking out for the best interests of ALL the citizens, not just a few.”

The picture shows a pile of ash after our trash is incinerated and before it is run through the metal shaker to pull out recyclable metals. The metal reclamation process has already made money and is covering the debt service to repay the money used from the contingency fund to make the capital purchase of the shaker.

This picture is after the metal has been shaken from the ash and the process is expected to lengthen the life of the ash trench from thirteen years to almost twenty years.

Here is the east ash trench representing several years of solid waste incineration currently being monitored for PH and other factors. The next picture is a mountain of recyclable glass first weighed and then dumped at the site by Waste Connections presumably to be taken later to a Portland facility.

It is unclear whether Waste Connections pays a storage fee to the county for storing this glass but during the most recent committee meeting Commissioner Parry downplayed the possibility of assessing a system benefit fee to the company for taking our waste elsewhere as not being a “positive solution”. We have discussed this on the blog previously.

Waste Connections chose and was given the opportunity to do business in Coos County and may haul our trash anywhere but the county actually has a right and a responsibility to assess a system benefit fee for every ton of waste transferred out of local control. Lane County assesses just such a fee.

Probably, at the next BOC meeting on the 6th or at the upcoming joint governance and structure advisory meeting on the 7th one or more of the commissioners will try and present a case to shut down the incinerator and convert Beaver Hill to a transfer station for Waste Connections. That is my prediction… hopefully, I am wrong.

UPDATE Scott Murray at Solid Waste has explained the mountain of glass.

Hi Mary,

In November of 2005, solid waste entered into an agreement with ODEQ to allow us to use glass on our roadways instead of rock. The reason the pile is so large now is that we are going into our winter season when we will use a lot more material. This saves the county money on our road maintenance and allows the glass to be used in a useful manner. The recycle market for glass has dropped so low that it actually cost money to recycle it. Waste Connections will continue to haul it to market when we have the amount we need.

Hope this helps.

Scott