If we are to accept the Brady Consulting assessment of the Beaver Hill Disposal Site incineration facility the plant has been mismanaged by current and former managers despite oversight from elected commissioners tasked with protecting the public asset. The Brady report blames deferred maintenance as the culprit for his recommendation not to restart the incinerators and prompting the laying off of four people. The plant should have been retrofitted every ten years, he said. Regrettably, decisions were made not to properly maintain the plant and according to several sources the poor maintenance began about 2001 about the time Waste Connections began taking steps to operate in Coos County.
So who approved this faulty maintenance plan? The county uses consulting engineers to monitor the site for environmental monitoring and sample collection and required reporting related to the landfill and leachate as well as incinerator and scrubber residue and to perform general oversight of permitting issues. According to a contract with BBA Environmental the consultant”… will review site sampling conditions, condition of monitoring locations, access to monitoring locations, and general site operations and conditions and provide a brief summary of findings at least once annually to the County that identifies deficiencies or other conditions which require repair, review or updating.” The BBA contract was signed in January 2011 by Bob Main and the late Andy Jackson and replaces a previous consulting agreement with PBS Engineering to perform the same duties. Did the annual summaries fail to report that “…external metal, where there is any metal left, is paper thin and is cracked, crinkled, has holes everywhere, and is ready to collapse…” as noted in the Brady Report?
Solid waste management perform their duties at the commissioners’ pleasure so it appears the commissions past and present have not protected this asset and there is no reason to believe they are qualified to act to dismantle the site at this time. To date this commission has not demonstrated that it is competent to administer this site. It has not enforced existing agreements that have cost the taxpayer $1 million. This commission has idled the lucrative metal reclamation operation along with the incinerator. Maintenance suggestions from staff and possibly within engineering reports have been ignored and now we are supposed to trust the judgment of two appointed commissioners and one elected commissioner who says he is “shocked” at what bad condition the site is in.
Perhaps an independent state appointed committee should be formed before this mostly unelected board does any further damage.
Please contact the commissioners and demand a competent review of this very important issue and further demand they collect all monies owed from Waste Connections for starving the Beaver Hill Disposal Site by transporting county trash as far away as 500 miles in violation of its franchise agreement with the county.
Bob Main
(541) 396-3121 ext 770
Fred Messerle
(541) 396-3121 ext 247
Cam Parry
(541) 396-3121 ext 281
