Environmental Services Division - Regular Meeting

Alright. Good evening, everyone. We'll go ahead and get today's, excuse me, meeting kicked off, our January 15 meeting of the Environmental Sustainability Board. So we'll start with a call to order. Eric, do you wanna go first? I'm

sorry. What?

We'll do roll call.

Oh, Eric's here.

Shannon Blair. Sue Barnes.

David Hampton.

Alright. And we are missing Joseph Chandler. Alright. We'll move on to item number two, which is public comment. Just a reminder that this section of the agenda is reserved for comments from the public on items that are not otherwise included in this agenda. Do we have any public comment in chambers? Doesn't look like it. Do we have anyone online in Helica?

There's no public online.

Alright. We can move on to item number three then, approval of the agenda for today's meeting. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda, or do we need any further discussion?

I wanna amend it just because the first item is election of the chair and vice chair.

Oh, okay. Yes. Good idea.

Move that to the end.

Do we wanna move it to the end, or do we wanna move it till after we do the I guess it doesn't matter because I can run the meeting. So Can I

ask

you a question?

Yes.

Are we gonna have any new board members in the next month's ESB? Because we're not we're not fully stacked right now.

Yeah. We'll have a new member. We should have a new member by the next meeting.

Okay. Not to say that's the factor, I just wanted to yeah.

You can move it to the end of board business.

Okay. Is everyone okay with doing that? Sure. Okay. Alright. So we'll move election of the environmental sustainability board chair and vice chair to the end of board business. Alright. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda as amended?

I move that we approve the agenda as amended. Second.

Alright. All in favor? Alright. Great. Thank you, everybody. So today's agenda is approved as amended. Move on to item number four, which is approval of minutes from our 12/18/2025 meeting. Any further discussion, or can we do we have a motion to approve?

I move that the Environmental Sustainability Board approve the December as presented.

I'll second.

Alright. All in favor? Okay. Awesome. Alright. So we'll move on to item number five then, which is board business starting with our the presentation of, 2025 Los Alamos County recycling material audit. And do you want me to read your bio? Okay. Sounds good.

It it's boring anyway. We don't need to go through that. Well, good evening, chair, board. Thank you for having us here today. My name is Adam Meyer. I am the district manager for the Barco Murph in Albuquerque. And along with me today is Paul Rougemont. He's our plant manager of that facility. We're pleased to present to you today our findings for the Los Alamos County recycling material audit that was conducted back in October. Next slide.

To get started, I wanna just kinda touch on a couple of items through the summary, and we'll kinda dive a little bit deeper into these, further along in the presentation. The material. So Los Alamos County brought in about 46,653 pounds of material that we audited at the facility. Of that material, about 82.3% of it was actually clean recycling. The remainder of that was contamination or, as we call it, residual or trash.

Fiber materials, OCC and mixed paper comprised of nearly 89% of that, which is very common in these audits when we do it, especially in a single stream. You're you're gonna have that higher amount in fiber materials. As far as contamination, about 8,200 pounds of residual, which does indicate contamination impacting diversion performance. Plastic and metals are present but represent a smaller share. As I said earlier, that's very common, but there may be some opportunities down the road to kinda up those volumes.

There was no film or office pack recovered in this audit, so you will see that in the tables as we present that later. And then the findings really support targeted improvements in collection, education, and program expansion. Next slide, please. Introduction and objectives. Alright.

So the Los Alamos County recycling material audit conducted on 10/17/2025. It was aimed to evaluate the composition and weight of materials processed during the audit period. The primary objectives were to determine the total weight of materials handled, identifying the proportion of recyclable materials versus trash, and assess the efficiencies of current recycling, excuse me, practices. This audit provides critical insights into diversion rates, contamination levels, and really opportunities for improving recycling operations. By analyzing this detail detailed weight data for commodities such cardboard, mixed paper, plastics, metals, and residual trash.

The county can make informed decision decisions to enhance sustainability programs. The audit also serves as a benchmark for future performance, tracking and compliance with local waste management goals that you may have. Understanding these metrics is essential for optimizing collection routes, material quality, improving it, and also reducing your landfill dependencies. These findings will guide strategic planning for possible resource allocation, community education, and infrastructure investments to increase recycling rates and minimize environmental impacts. Next slide, please.

Right. Audit overview. Let's go to the next slide. Methodology. So this is essentially how do we conduct the audit. As you see in this picture here, we established a clean bunker. It's an empty bunker for accurate material tracking. We want to avoid any cross contamination with other customers' materials so we get true accurate data. We identified two trucks that were brought by the county for us to conduct this audit. We weighed those trucks and then those trailers, and then we dumped that material both, excuse me, both into the bunker.

We run all that material once it's on the bunker through the sorting system, and then we sort that material by commodity type. After that is completed, we'll bale each commodity separately, and then we'll weigh the bail commodity individually and record those weights as well as the trash and to kinda really get a good understanding what our contamination looks like. All records of the weights and findings will be in the audit recap forms. Next, please. Alright.

So some metrics and a little summary here. The audit recorded a total material weight, as we discussed earlier, about 46,653 pounds, which is about 23.33 tons. Of this, the trash accounted for about 8,200 pounds or 4.12 tons. Overall, diversion rate was very clean or your recycle rate of 82.3%, which was pretty solid with a mired you know, what we re we brought in was or the Los Angeles brought in was 23.33 tons, and there was a minor discrepancy of what was brought in to what was baled. So what came in at the beginning when the trucks were weighed to what we weighed when we had the bales and when we weighed the trash room of, point zero zero three three tons, which comes out to, like, six pounds.

So very, very accurate data. Fiber streams, including cardboard and mixed paper dominated the recycling composition, as you would guess, contributing to over 34,000 pounds combined, which is nearly 89% of that clean recyclables that we're talking about earlier. Plastics such as PET and HDP collectively weighed about just over 2,200 tons, and UBC and any scrap metal was just under 2,000 not 200. Yeah. I'm sorry.

It was 2,200 pounds for the U B for the PET and HDPE, and UBC and scrap metal was about 2,000 pounds. There was no film or office pack that was recorded in this audit. Highlighting areas for potential improvement in collection and reporting is what we gather from the summary. These metrics underscore the importance of focusing on fiber recovery, continue those high volumes, and and, you know, seeking other opportunities to increase that. And also contamination, which is is key.

How do we reduce and maintain and improve for our diversion performance? Next slide. So up next, composition analysis. Next slide. We'll have a a table here.

Just kinda gives you a little breakdown. As you see here, fibers, again, dominate their recycling composition, while materials of PET and HEP are significantly a small portion of that material, which is common, as I said earlier, when we conduct these material audits for single stream recycling. What separates Los Alamos, though, their audit from other audits we've done in neighboring communities is the contamination. Our facility commonly sees contamination rates of 30 to 34% for all materials that are brought into us. And Los Alamos being at that 17 and a half mark is very impressive.

Obviously, the goal is zero, but that that is very impressive. These figures are good, but there are opportunities for targeted improvements in collection systems and public education to boost recovery rates for underrepresented streams. Next slide. Composition. Trash represented, again, four tons of the total audited material.

While good, this could still be significantly this could still significantly, excuse me, impact the overall recycle rate. With recyclables totaling about 38,000 pounds, recycling, as I said earlier, stands at about 82% indicating strong performance, but always leaving room for improvement. The presence of trash trash suggests in recycling streams, or improper disposal practices, which can reduce the efficiency of material recovery and also increase our processing costs. Addressing contamination through targeted education programs or campaigns or simple things as signage, mailers, having some consistency there, marketing, what can we recycle, what can't we, along with stricter enforcement, which is kind of a sticky one there, enforcement of recycling guidelines can help reduce trash levels. Additionally, implementing periodic audits along with feedback loops loops for residents and business can help reinforce those proper sorting behaviors.

So there may be some opportunities to I know we do at our hauling districts, we'll do trash audits to kinda let them know, hey. This is what you got for recycling. This is what you got for trash. Let's get you here. And maybe that's something the county might wanna look into or maybe already is doing of helping out these businesses and maybe these communities understand what they're throwing away and what their waste streams are are and what their opportunities may be.

These recycling metrics are critical for sustainability reporting, of course, and compliance with your local waste reduction goals, making it essential to improve this figure through continuous operational enhancements. And we'll kinda touch on that a little bit more. Next slide, please. So here's the the truth of what that 17% looks like. So this is our contamination that we got from Los Alamos in our material audit.

This is actually our trash room. This is all the material that actually ran through our sortation system. So this is before or this is past downstream, past the presort where we have sorters going through and trying to take out these big items. So even with having all those people out there, this is still what gets through. You'll see a lot of film.

It's very common. Some wraps, which would be like Christmas lights and, hoses and wire, which can be very troublesome, for us. It does affect the performance of the equipment as that stuff can get wrapped into our equipment, shutting us down, and really impacting recovery as well because some of this material can take along some PET with it as well, and now it's going to the landfill. So next slide, please. This is what our sorters on our presort one line was able to grab.

So these images show residual that was removed from our pre pre sort line, which is our first line of defense and removing any contamination before proceeding downstream into our sortation system. Here, you can see, like, single bag or single use bags, film, extension cords. There's even a fuel can in there, a lunchbox, a suitcase, and even particle board. So a lot of contamination, a lot of room for improvement. Next slide.

Insights and recommendations. So the audit reveals several operational insights that can inform future improvements. All bales were weighed individually, ensuring accurate data collection. Fiber streams, of course, dominated that recyclable compositions suggesting that current systems are effective for paper and cardboard, which is great, but less so for plastics to include P and T and HDPE. Additionally, the presence of over 8,000 pounds of trash as the pictures earlier highlighted really does require some attention.

Addressing these issues are essential to achieving your sustainability goals. Next slide. Recommendations for improvement. As I discussed earlier, your residual rate is extremely low at 17% versus what we commonly see between thirty and thirty four percent. It speaks to what everybody in this room is doing and the community as a whole is doing.

You're probably, if you compare with your neighbors, multiple steps ahead, but doesn't mean there's not room for improvement. Some of these recommendations that are outlined here, I believe you guys are already doing. Right? Especially the first two. So on the first one, you know, fiber capture, like, let's optimize as much as we can.

How do we enhance OCC and mixed paper collection routes and improve signage at drop off points, let's say, to boost fiber capture efficiencies, which will just in turn generate a higher return on single source material, but also reduce processing costs. If it's coming in clean, there's really not processing. It's just bailing and sending it out, which is just a benefit to the county. Same with plastics, you know, increase the sortation efficiencies by introducing dedicated collection bins. This can be very tough.

There's only so much volume of this to be collected, but it's it's worth exploring or looking into providing clear guidance to the residents on what is acceptable materials. Plastics get very confusing as far as what we can and can't take. The third, implement contamination reduction strategies through targeted educational or education campaigns, community workshops, and also, again, like I said, the sticky one, enforcement of recyclable recycling guidelines. That can always be a a very tough one for sure. Finally, you know, I think it's very important that we establish regular audits like the one we conducted back in October just for performance reviews, to track the progress, and to adjust strategies as needed.

You know? These actions will help Los Alamos contain or county, excuse me, maintain high diversion rates that they seek and reduce that landfill dependencies as we touched on earlier and also to support your long term sustainability goals. I think this audit was well overdue and needed. In the three years I've been operating in at that MRF, I don't think we've had a a thorough audit like this one as intense, and it was well overdoing it. It really provided a good baseline to see where we're at so we know where we're going.

And so I I would encourage maybe one or two audits a year going forward to really see where we're we're going with this. Recycle market updates. Just a couple high level notes, some things that we're seeing going on. There's probably more effects on on our end and really just the the shipping out and send it to the mills. Recovered paper market.

Domestic prices prices have stabilized in December and also in January for for OCC and also mixed paper after prior declines. This time last year, OCC was probably double the price it is right now per ton. We're only at the $100 range versus the $50 range. Mixed paper has just been a mixed bag. He just it's very unpredictable at the time, but it is very low right now.

Lot of seasonal factors to consider. Holidays is always a tough one, but also winter weather, impacting certain, flows to include UBC, but also OCC. Market drivers, China import inspections disrupted trade back in October and November. I'm sure there's some political implications there that I don't wanna dive into, but that situation has since stabilized. And then, mixed paper is just it's just been kinda lukewarm throughout the whole year and probably some of lowest pricing I've seen in my time since being here.

The outlook, though, mills are stocking up premium grades, with supply challenges. And then the one that kinda sticks with me and I'm sure with you guys, virgin pulp and plastics remain attractive. So essentially, what that's saying is it's cheaper to produce virgin pulp or especially, plastics than it is to source from recyclable recycled material. It's very unfortunate. We're seeing it especially in HDPE color. That price has just dropped. There's just no demand for it. It's just too cheap for these producers to create virgin containers. Then PET and HDPE demand is is flat, same with the our plastics across the board. But the the bright spot would be UBC and steel cans.

The weather, what though, is beautiful here, unless you like snow. There are some challenges on the on the East Coast as far as weather and, that kinda disrupted some supply chain issues. So there is a higher demand for UBC and pricing's kinda going up, and so we're optimistic about that. And then with demand being down with OCC or or flat, there's a bigger emphasis on maintaining bale quality. Contamination plays a big part in that bale quality.

We catch as much as we can, but it can't affect the quality of the bales, and bales can get rejected. We haven't had any issues with UBCs specifically. We've had some audits done on our OCC that they there's some game in shipping if they wanted to downgrade it, but we've we kinda collaborated with them and and corrected some issues to make sure that our OCC bales came out clean. And it hasn't been an issue for us, but there are issues elsewhere. So that's just a quick little update.

Next slide. Up here, I just got my mine and Paul's contact information. If there's anything or any questions you may have after this meeting down the road whenever, some collaboration or some ideas, We're always available. We're also our facility is open door. You guys wanna come in and do a tour. I'm sure some of you have already, but if you wanna do another one and just see what all goes into it, we'd love to have you there. So our contact information is right there for you guys. So, again, thank you so much for allowing us to present this to you. That completes the presentation, and we stand for questions.

Awesome. Thank you. Mhmm. Really appreciate it. I have questions, but I'm sure everyone else does. So Eric, do you want to start? Yeah.

Okay.

All right. Yeah. I have quite a few. What's the cost for contamination, like, when you encounter that? Like, is it by, like, tonnage? And then once you've compiled it, yeah, how much is it to dispose of?

Well, I mean, the easy answer is obviously the cost to landfill it, you know, depending on the facility that you're going to. That's that's a broad range depending on where you're going for anywhere from, you know, $35 to a $100 a ton. Okay. But there's a lot of costs involved, manpower, equipment to move that around, to truck it. So that cost is gonna probably more than double that. So there there is a substantial cost to that.

So is the cost like it's not just material but it's also manpower to be able to move the material? And it can't just that that that waste just can't go to Rio Rancho Landfill or eventually Los Lunas? It has to you you still have to sort it and get off to a different facility for waste disposal. Is that right?

No, it goes in the NWS in the missile solid waste stream right there.

Okay.

Yep.

Okay. And then so what is the is there a general cost? Like is it just what's the rate when you do encounter contamination? Because the way I see it is like on us from a continuous improvement process is what's the cost of that contamination and then versus creating a campaign to offset that contamination on our side of the house so we know like, okay. Well, it cost us $20,000 in FY '26. Yeah. Okay. We'll take that $20,000, and we'll put it into public education, see if can offset some of that. So that's the only reason I was I was asking that part.

Yeah. And maybe it's fair enough. Before I came here, but, I mean, I could just tell you truck hour alone, you're looking at over a $100 an hour just to operate the truck between truck truck upkeep, the employee wages, all that Yeah. The time. And then also, you know, now you gotta haul it to the landfill, whether it's Sierra Colorado, Rio Rancho Landfill. And then that's where depending on where you go, you you earn that 35 to a $100 range. So it it it is a big ticket item. It does affect the processing fee. Yeah. So it's a shared cost.

So that's where the county will see a lot of benefit by reducing that. And that's what these audits do. It kinda sets the table of, okay. Well, our residuals here at seventeen percent. We were at 20%. You're actually gonna see that benefit on your end. I could probably map it out and and and send that to you and kinda give you an idea. Hey. This is where you were when the contract commenced, and this is where you're at today with that 17%. Because I think we did go down considerably from where we perceived it to be at.

Okay. And I default to Inhelic on on that next step if

we spent last year, don't we?

I think way it works is it is a profit share. So right. So he said, like, the majority of our material is coming from cardboard and paper. Yes. So we'd get a percentage for what that would be I guess, what that would mark it as.

Yeah. So so it's a it's a revenue share is what we do. So, basically, the the healthier, the better that the the program is. It's a benefit to the county. And the the the quickest, easiest way is reducing the contamination because that is at a cost where the commodities that come in is at a benefit. And we base that off the index pricing that we get that's updated monthly. That's public for you guys to review, and that's how we determine, you know, set amount of tons at this value per ton. Yeah. And then we'll drop that down. It starts with the processing cost and then you start seeing those reductions in that processing cost with the clean material coming in.

Okay. And then what what would you recommend for, like, audit cadence? Like because, obviously, you wanna get a very if you're taking a sample of a population, you wanna get the most accurate value, and that depends on the input of the sample compared to the population. Like, what what would you recommend for cadence for an audit?

Well, being that this is the first one, and it's it's only two truckloads that we brought in two trailers.

Are they roll up, like, 20 cubic yards? Or are they

They're full truck. 53 footers. Yeah. They're transfer trailers. Okay. I would suggest that six months out that we do it again just to make sure that those numbers are are true. Yeah. You know? Let's look at that content contamination and see if that's an issue. If you kinda get some it gets a little bit more predictable, maybe just annually. That's usually common. We do it once a year.

Yeah.

But I think being that this was the first one and limited amount of volume, I have to suggest this summer that maybe we look at it again.

Okay. Then I'll ask my last one and

then Okay.

For now because I

got

but this the other one I have is and this is more just general knowledge is how much of the material stays like locals in The United States or Canada or North America versus going abroad to, like, Southeast Asia? Or what type of materials, I guess?

Great question. So that update market update that I provided you, I just skipped over a lot of the export except for reading up China. That's always interesting that that because, you know, back Yeah. You know, a few years back to China soared that came down. But, really, ours is mostly domestic. Okay? Even the OCC, it literally goes right down the road. Okay. Cool. It's it's in the state.

Okay.

Great. So most of our material, it stays domestically. We work with Georgia Pacific, and they they keep a lot of that material within The US.

Okay.

In their network.

Okay. Actually, one last question. I just thought of it. Because right now, I believe we send our glass recycle to Colorado. Is that right, Angelica? Is there any chance you guys will expand, be able to do glass recycle?

Yeah. I I heard that you guys are sending it up to Denver. Right? I forgot the name of that company. I'm actually gonna go up there and meet with them because we wanna explore that that possibility. I know City of Albuquerque was looking at it as well. I think it's just gonna kinda expand the recycling program, and there's a lot of people looking or asking about that. And I'd like to provide some answers for them. So I was scheduled to, hopefully, February or March, go up there, look at the facility, see see if it's something that's feasible for us and we can make happen

Yeah.

And kinda go from there. I will say this. It's very difficult when you introduce it to a single stream versus separate source. You know? The reason being it just disrupts and contaminates a lot of the other materials that are in there. Yeah. And it's very hard on the hauling aspect of it. Yeah. Of hauling it, it's really hard on the trucks.

And we already segregate. You know, that's the good news. So we already segregate our glass here more just from a transportation perspective of consent to you guys for setting up to Colorado, six hour drive. You know, it's just and we don't we don't do it that often, do we? It's a few times a year, but you're still stockpiling quite a bit. Right?

Oh, yeah.

So on glass, we're probably averaging every other month depending on the season. Of course, around the holidays, New Year's, Super Bowl weekend, we'll get a little bit more. Yeah. So but we average 20 tons a haul.

20 tons a haul. Okay. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you both.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Alright. Who's next? I can go

if okay.

Okay. Some of mine kind of feed off of what Eric said. So do when you guys do an audit, do we pay for it? Because you're shutting down your facility. Right? So

There's a cost to us.

To you? And then does that come back to us?

No. And when I said I I suggest you do one in six months, I think Paul kinda tightened up a little bit. Because to be to be fair, between him and Armando, they're the ones that are there, and Paul is kinda coordinating everything. There is there is a cost to us. I think we did it on a Saturday. Correct, gentlemen? On a Friday? We cleared out that area, we're able to do that. So there is a cost to us. There's time is a factor as well.

Like, right now, we have there's some seasonality, a lot of volume coming in, so that place is full. We we would not be able to do an audit until late spring at this point because it takes a long time to kinda chip away at all that material that's in there right now. So, yeah, it it would be kind of a it's a cost to us, but we we do provide that.

Okay. Cool. Okay. So we we last year, we were asked by council to kind of investigate, like, plastic bag usage in the county. And in our research, I was having a really difficult time finding an accurate number for, like, the contamination rate of bags in recycling facilities. Do you I guess, from your experience, like, is that a big problem having plastic bags? When you look at those photos, it seems like a lot of what's in there is plastic bags.

Yeah. There's a lot of challenges that are presented with that. I think I wanna defer to Paul on that one because he can kinda speak to it a little bit more detail for you on that.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, approximately 80% of what's being brought in is the single use trash bags if you look at our residual rates. So absolutely. 80%? About 80% of the residual. Oh

my god. Okay. That's way higher than I would have thought.

That's not from Alzheimer's.

Right. Just like across the board. Yeah.

Across the board.

Okay. And then my understanding is that when single use plastic bags get, like, into the system, it they get stuck in wheels and things and you have to shut it down. When that happens, how much does it cost you to have to shut everything down and, like, clean it up? Do you know?

It depends on the situation. You know, we'd be down an hour. We could be down six hours.

Yeah.

So I could've I prefer speak

prefer to Adam. I'm the numbers guy. Numbers guy. So last year, we had some issues with contamination and just, to be honest, with just equipment that was failing, and we purpose purposely shut down for just a week to do those repairs and to ensure the the wraps and the films and all that didn't kind of, create those jams going forward. Labor, because of the time loss, you're gonna have to double it up and create second shifts, running night shift.

It it's it's substantial. I mean, you could be talking about just in a three month span, you're you're gonna spend a 150 k, 150,000 just to get that material caught back up just from being a couple weeks down and trying to get your, you know, equipment up to par again and and getting everything cleaned up. Jams are a huge issue that we do contend with. Sometimes it's just weather and wet material, but sometimes it's jams. And I'm glad you highlighted that. It's it's the film, the bags Mhmm. And then, you know, of course, the the wraps, as as we like to say, the wires and hoses and Christmas lights Yeah. Unfortunately.

I'm shocked about the Christmas lights, but okay. I just have one more question, and I think it kinda ties into what you just said. So you mentioned, like, recycling enforcement. I don't think we really do enforcement. Mhmm. Have you like, do you have good examples of what that looks like?

Not here locally. And I know there are some communities where we have capabilities on the hauling in, because we do have a we we do have a hauling operation down there as roadrunner waste service. We don't do it there right now, but we have capabilities with cameras and picking up real time contamination. And we can enforce ourselves. We can enforce in the sense of just not picking up the contaminated recycling.

As far as, you know, these initiatives or the county with code enforcement and stuff like that, I I haven't had that experience. But good news is we have about 46 MERS throughout The US. I can kinda tap into that and try to find out, you know, how that code enforcement worked. I know a lot of people don't wanna go down that road.

Yeah.

I believe the city of Albuquerque, before I came to this market, were doing it for a little while and kinda backed off of that.

Okay.

And but contamination went up just right after that.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I would be curious, like, if I when I go I live in White Rocks. If I go to the station down there, just to even drop my glass off, I'm like, what is in here? Like so I I would be curious if you all and we can do research too. But thank you.

A lot

of it stops at the curb. I mean and it's and it's outreach and just getting out there and connecting to people. Unfortunately, some people just see an opportunity to throw trash in their

Yeah. Definitely.

So you hope that enforcement will help with that, but lot of it's gonna be outreach and just communicating that, which is it's not a secret risk. We all know that.

Yeah.

Which is how do we how are we effective in doing that? And that's that's the that we're trying to the the answer that we need to find.

Yeah. Thank you. Mhmm. Alright. Sue? Good morning. You bet.

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank

you. Just some clarification here. What is film and what is Office Pack?

Do you want me to answer or do you want me to you can get, like, fine.

So film is a low density polyethylene plastic

L D.

Versus Office Pack is office paper Office with with some ink on it, no plastic, windows like envelopes, but mostly just office paper.

Office paper. Okay.

With ink.

And so when you the the photos that you showed us of our residual had a lot of film in it. I know it that's not what you're looking for?

So not in a single stream. What we look for is if it's source separated, it comes in by itself,

we will

process that. Okay. It goes through our system, then it causes havoc, like Adam explained earlier, you know, bringing downtime to the facility, you know, jams, creating jams, but also taking some of that recyclables with it.

Okay. Okay. And do you know what that that film goes to when you sell it and they turn it into something else, what it gets turned into? So

the the the bill we're selling it to is actually just breaking it down, melting it down, making pellets out of it, and then in turn selling it to other companies, different manufacturers, making, you know, toys and different types of other plastics.

Because we have, up here, Smiths collects film, of that sort. And so and so I guess some people are separating it and taking it to Smith's to dispose to dispose of, but it sounds like EU folks would process that if we were collecting that separately.

Right. And and and there's different grades of low density polyethylene plastics as well. Single use plastic bags is not in any of the grades. Ah, okay. So it's gotta be more of a shrink-wrap type plastic. Okay.

Alright. Not bags. Got it. Okay. I have questions.

The plastics three through seven was another thing I wasn't quite sure about. So you're saying that we don't you don't see many of much of that from us, and so you think that we're under collecting it in some way?

Yeah.

Is that

refer to Adam a

little I do okay. Because I it seems odd that we do does it because we aren't using it or because we're people are not recycling it? I don't quite understand.

We'll jump back and forth on that one. Okay. Well, first off, with that with this particular audit, our optical sorter was going under repairs, so we didn't capture a a good number on that. Correct? Correct. So that's why I suggest, again, let's get a better gauge going in, this summer and doing their audit. But, also, it does represent a very, very small number. And I think it does because it's so confusing what's a three through seven, what is acceptable, what's not. It inter introduces a lot of contamination as well. Do you wanna add anything to

that? Right.

What they used to take as three through sevens is no longer vital to their manufacturing processes, polystyrene being one of them. So it kinda gets a little confusing in there. Unfortunately, we're at kind of at the discretion of the mills of what they take. Right? You'll be seen being one of them aluminum. We won't take the cat food cans, but we mix it with our just everyday metals,

not

in the aluminum cans because they can't process that.

Okay.

So would it be good if we collected more plastics three through seven?

It'd be good to collect all the plastics.

Oh, okay. Except for polystyrene. Right. Then I think I had one other question, if I can find out where it was. Oh, this is actually for our county folks. How did you pick the trucks that were sent to for this audit? Was it all residential? Was it Los Alamos, White Rock? Was there business waste as well?

Commercial, residential Okay. Overlooked drop offs, lemon lot, some of recycling

Uh-huh.

Which all I think what plays a good part on our contamination rates is that we're able to capture contamination once we dump it before we reload it into a transport trailer. Mhmm. So anything that we see that shouldn't be in there, we're able to back drag, separate, and continue loading. Oh. Of course, we can't get the super small stuff, but, I mean, if we see something big like pallets is pretty common, tires, and that's getting snuck into our our mixed recycling.

Wow. Okay. Great.

As far as scheduling, we we just scheduled it on a recycling week. We made sure we had them coordinated with Rougemont, and it went actually pretty smooth.

And and do you have a feeling for what proportion roughly of what was audited came from residences versus businesses versus Lantel?

I'm gonna say majority was residential.

It was resident.

Good.

Okay.

Great.

Mhmm. Alright. Residential curbside.

Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you so much.

David, do you have any questions?

I I thank you for the honor. I think you guys did a really good job. The council or county council received a presentation from Mozart last Tuesday about their waste energy plants. And I wonder if you guys had any thoughts on that. Yeah. It's just another another way to the the whole idea is they superheat stuff. There's no emissions and they create what they're what they're calling clean energy. And they take all plastics, for instance, among they take everything, literally, I think, except for non carbon items.

Yeah. I am not familiar with that. I apologize.

Oh, no worries. Thanks.

Alright. Any other questions?

I have I have quite a few. Okay. Okay. So thank you for the presentation and coming out here tonight. I appreciate that, and it's nice to have you in person. Okay. So I'm gonna just clarify on the plastics three through seven. Are you so there's been some confusion of, like, do you want the bottles and jars three through seven or any three through seven, like strawberry containers, catering containers. We see a lot of those.

When it comes to that, absolutely. Yeah.

So you do want those? Yeah. Any three through seven.

Any three through seven, obviously, with the exceptions of polystyrene

K.

Or PVC.

Pipe. Pipe. Pipes. Okay. Great. Well, that's great. That opens up kind of it kind of expands our program, I think. Let's see. Let me keep going through my notes. So you talked about plastics plastics that you are seeing. So is PET and the HDPE the number one and twos? Yes. Okay. So you are seeing those and just continue to contribute or, like, educate people to recycle those?

Yes.

Okay.

One, two, and five is being our most, you know, popular plastic.

One, two, and five? Yeah. Okay. Let's see. So just to circle back to the film because we do get asked that question a lot, and we try to discourage our residents from putting those into the recycling stream. So you do not want any sort of film.

Not in the same stream. No.

Right. If we had a big giant truckload and sent that separately

Possibly, it has gotta be, you know, of a specific

grade. Okay.

For instance, do we get some for the distribution center? Mhmm.

Right.

Right? That they'll wrap, you know, other

parts.

We'll we'll get that from them.

Just wanted to clarify. So we're gonna keep telling the residents not to put that. Okay.

Yeah. And even that shrink-wrap that looks clean to the eye, it it's really just a b grade. It's a lower grade and and very hard to find mills that that want it. It can it can be difficult at times. So something that's degrading lower is gonna be more difficult like a bag, especially in single stream. It's it's dirty. It's done already at that point.

Okay. Yeah. I was I guess because the way it was phrased, recycling stream gaps, like, if that Mhmm. It sounds like it's an area we can improve in, but it's not you're not because it's saying absence of certain streams like film, Office Pack, and plastics three through seven indicate gaps in collection or reporting.

Yeah. More speaking to, if you see opportunities to separate that out, single source it out, and then bring it clean, There's there's opportunities there, but that and I and I stated this is a challenge among sociable plastics plastics to do that just surely because of volume. K. It's easy to deal with cardboard. You get a lot of cardboard, and then it's easier to ship it, and it's a higher volume material.

Okay. No. That's really helpful, and it's good to know, like, if we came across something big like that, you might be able to help. Let's see. Yeah. I think and then I just had some questions. Like, I've seen Josh post a video about pots and pans, and I remember once upon a time, the recycling center did take pots and pans in the blue bin. That's not allowed anymore?

We do take pots and pans.

We do? We do. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Because it's metal. Right?

Right.

How about yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So

That's good.

Any first

notice. I didn't know that. So I'm that's new information.

Yeah. Like metal, any sort of metal really could go in there. Right? Correct. Yeah. So go ahead.

Oh, I also didn't know that. I had to I thought

we had to

take the metal to the metal recycling at the eco station.

You can. It's another I

think I I think maybe I need to refresh my

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Well, I think we really wanna support you, and these are questions we get all the time. People love to talk about recycling, so we just like to support you in any way we can.

Appreciate it.

Cool. Alright. Well, Adam and Paul, thank you guys so much. And, yeah, thanks for driving up here, I'm assuming.

You have

to go back to Albuquerque.

It was a beautiful drive.

It's

alright. Thank you, guys.

Thanks so and Josh, thanks for Thank you. Coming.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Appreciate it. Cool. Alright. Great. Well, that I'm glad we got that presentation. Alright. Let's move on to the next item, which is approving the 2026 ISB meeting schedule.

I don't have that as an attachment to share. So before you tonight, you'll see the 2026 ESB meeting schedule. The plan would be to meet, the same third Thursday of every month at 05:30, and then we'd meet in council chambers unless it was election. They normally ask us to be in the B And C Room. So this is here for your approval tonight.

Alright. Any discussion needed? I think we're all pretty much

I I did go through the schedule to be sure that nothing felt fell on holidays because we had a problem with Juneteenth. It's this year, but not last year, but not this year. Yeah. So these look good. Okay. Cool. And I guess I move that the environmental sustainability board approve the 2026 meeting schedule as presented.

I second.

Alright. All those in favor? Okay. Cool. Okay. Next item, I think, is yeah. Reviewing and review and approve the 2026 ESB work plan Okay. Which hopefully will be a relatively simple process since we've already talked about it quite a few times. Mhmm. So yeah.

Right. So I just went through, did a little spell check, incorporated all of your comments and feedback. I will apologize ahead of time just because of the way this form has been created. There's gonna just be some formatting issues. So just there's really nothing I could do about that.

So they're in one point three point one. Mhmm. It it kind of falls off not just those who already support environmental what?

Initiatives. Why did

it change the font?

Because it's so weird. I don't know. And then and then opening it up in this browser, like, it it also doesn't help, so I apologize.

Oh, it's kinda funny.

Yeah. There's

Okay. But I can go back and make a note on my side. Paper copy. K. So just make sure it's, like, not cut off. Because is it cut off environmental initiatives? Okay. That's all I found. Anything

else? I didn't have any.

All I See, like, in the PDF that I gave you, this space was not in there.

Yeah.

I think it's beautiful.

Thank you. It's

very artistic. Keeps you interested in the art form of it. So

alright. So do we need to go through attachment a at

all? Okay.

We do.

So that's this form. And I think I could yeah. It's attached to your document. Yeah. So I can't make edits on this one in real time, but I have the form attached here. It's in your doc in your packet behind the other attachment a so I can make final changes on that. Right. So so these are based off council's strategic goals for the year. So you'll see some changes mostly in the language around environmental, but we can go through each one.

So you're saying the first one was the old one and the second one is the current one. Got it. Oh. The one that doesn't have the x's on it.

Got it. I missed that. Thank you for clarifying. Thanks. I thought it was this okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I haven't made any x's on it. I just thought we could do that tonight.

Okay. So everyone should be looking at the second one in their packet. Right. Okay. Alright. Cool.

Okay. So quality governments.

Yes.

Inform and engage our community members. I think we do that. Yes.

Yep. Human.

Intergovernmental, collaborate.

Mhmm.

I think yes. Yep. Yes. We do. K.

Even if they're community, I think we do that a lot. And we actually have quite a few regional with in my new role, I've made quite a few regional and state partners. Fiscal stewardship, think we try to consider that too in all of our initiatives.

Yeah.

Deliver customer focused, reliable, sustainable services?

Yes.

Yes. See. Okay. Evaluate the county's assets and infrastructure to prioritize funding to first maintain and protect those investments.

Interesting.

I would say, yeah.

Do we do? Do we?

Yeah. We just installed those charges, our new assets and infrastructure for the county. And if we're gonna

Yeah. That's true. The EV infrastructure, we're working on that. The rest of the EV infrastructure.

Well, if we I mean, it's not really I wouldn't necessarily be asked more like BPU, but, like, all the new, like, electrical infrastructure that we're gonna have to put in to electrify.

Mhmm.

Yeah. We at least advise on it. Right?

I suppose composting might also

Yes. That would

If if we have a new facility, that would be infrastructure and and an asset. So

Yeah. The EcoStation is. Yeah. For sure. Attract and employ

diverse and highly qualified staff item.

No. That's not

Not anymore.

You definitely help retain me, so I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Economic vitality. So housing, I don't know how much we weigh into that.

I don't know if we do a lot, but I like, right now, but I do think there's opportunity for, like, environmental justice. Like, having housing equity is like and I think did we was housing listed in the capitol to any extent? I can't recall. Okay.

Not so much providing housing, but, you know, making housing, efficient Yeah. That kind of thing, but not not the provision of new housing development. No. That was not in there. Okay.

So I don't know if any of these apply to us.

I think the local business does. And if we're supporting the green Yeah. That's one. Program.

Yeah. I agree.

Retention Yeah. Assisted opportunities.

Yeah. I don't

I don't feel like it necessarily applies. But Okay.

Yeah. I'm not I'm not on board with that one.

So so we don't think any of these other ones. Maybe

the educational preservation no. It's not even that one.

We do support community events.

That's not really It says That's under tourism.

Oh. That's on the next page.

Oh, yeah. I think we do because we do science fest and stuff. No. We don't want any Internet. So just kidding.

Joking. That's not really us. Yep. Access to mental health or social service.

Where are we at? Community?

Quality quality of life.

Okay. Joe was texting. He's like, I thought we had a meeting next week.

Oh, no.

Oh. So I'm trying to get him online to at least do chair and vice chair. Yeah. Okay. Expand access to behavioral. No. No. Inclusion and access. Yeah. We I think we definitely try that to do that.

Right? We should.

K. And, also, like, mobility and then the last one too. Sure.

Oops. K. Public safety.

I think then

all the Well, the the one that comes to mind that you are working on, but maybe we as a board are not working on is, like, the, the cooling stations and the heat heat mitigation stuff that we were talking about at the LASA meeting. I don't know how much the ESB will be involved in that, but that's a that's a community safety thing.

It's like the health well, that's health and well-being. Right?

Yeah. It's kinda both.

Maybe both. But

It's both? Yeah.

Because it's like emergency response K. Hazard mitigation. But I don't know if it necessarily applies to the board, I think, is what you're saying, Sue.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm not sure that it does either. And, I mean, we've certainly, there was stuff in the cap about resilience to climate change effects, you know, emergency hazard, which comes under hazard mitigation and emergency response, I think, to things like wildfire and, you know, so that's in the cap, but I don't know if it's in our this year's work plan.

Well, the whole cap is in our work plan.

Okay. So it prob so from that aspect, I would say that that does, to some extent, apply because we have in the cap the intention to address resilience to climate change effects, which is under the category of hazard mitigation and emergency response.

Okay. Okay.

And then all of them under environmental stewardship. Right. K. Cool. Right.

Alright. So I think as long as there's no further discussion needed, we should probably approve. Do we have a motion to

approve? Has it been amended then?

Yeah. It's been amended. Yeah.

With the changes. Yeah.

So I move that the environmental sustainability board approve the 2026 work plan as amended.

I second.

Alright. All in favor? Awesome. So this year's work plan has been approved, and now it goes to counsel for final approval. Right, Angelica? Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. Cool. Alright. I think Joe might be online.

Me.

It says me, so I'm not sure. Hi, Joe. Is that you? K. Let me stop sharing. Great.

Is that Joe, are you online now?

It is. Okay. Sorry. I'm working on it.

Hi, Joe. Thanks for joining us. No.

I had this down for next week.

Well, we just approved our the rest of our meetings for this coming year, so now now you have no excuse, I guess. Just kidding.

I'll I'll pre populate. I'll send a meeting invite. Cool. So yeah. Good.

Alright. So we'll move on to the last item, which is election of environmental sustainability board chair and vice chair. Alright. So I'm gonna read the nominations for both positions. Let's start

with oh, I guess I

Well, that way, people

Can know.

Yeah. Can know. So this is, like, a little funny because all of us were nominated for both positions. So the following individuals have been nominated for the chair position. Sue Barnes, Eric Lachelle, Shannon Blair, David Hampton, Joe Chandler. So Eric, do you accept your nomination for the chair position?

I don't

want to. No.

No? Yeah. Okay. I also am not I need to step away from being chair. I just have a lot going on. But I appreciate the nomination. Sue, do you accept?

I appreciate the nomination, but I decline. Okay.

David, do you accept?

Ask Joe first.

Okay. Joe, do you accept?

I have to decline. I have too much stuff going on at home.

In that case, I accept.

Okay. So I have a question, I guess. Can we are we how do I wanna phrase this? Can we, like, split chair? Is that possible? No? Okay. Because I feel like everyone's a little overwhelmed, which is partially why. Okay. So David is the only person who accepts. I think we still have to we still have to do a roll call vote. Yes. Go ahead.

So I just wanna say it will be a little awkward because I'm chair on two other boards.

You think you have the capacity to be chair?

I definitely have the capacity and and as a new member of the board, I will be primarily running meetings and yeah. But setting the agenda that you guys want, I think, and Angelica wants. So

In my experience, Angelica is pretty hands on, I think. And I don't I don't know how other staff handle the board, but she sets the agenda and then, basically, just the chair approves it. But if there's anything you want to add to it, you can. But I I guess I would say it's

it's not necessarily Yeah. We normally set the agenda at the meeting. Yeah. And then if things come up,

yeah, we just add it. Yeah. Yeah.

So but, yeah, we can work together for

I I do wanna say thank you.

Yes.

I I Yes.

I I've been chair before, so I just that's the only reason I'm not doing it again. It's just because I've already done it before.

So I actually think all of us, including Joe, have been chair before.

Not me.

Not you. Okay. Okay. Well, we're also I mean, we're here to help. You know, however we Yeah. Can

I know? It's it's everybody on the board is passionate, so that's good.

Yeah.

Okay. So we will still go through the vote for chair. So we'll start with Eric. And I just would like everyone to state their name and the person that they are voting for.

I'm Eric Lachelle, and I vote for David Hampton.

Okay. Shannon Blair, and I vote for David Hampton.

Sue Barnes, I vote for David Hampton.

David Hampton for David Hampton.

Sorry. And Joe, do you wanna go?

Joe Chandler for David Hampton.

Okay. Awesome. Well, yes. Thank you, David, for taking this on.

I

think we all we all appreciate it, and I look forward to handing the reins off and and helping in however I can. Alright. So we'll move on to the vice chair. So the following individuals have been nominated for the vice chair position. Shannon Blair, Eric Lachelle, Joe Chandler, David Hampton, Sue Barnes. Eric, do you accept your nomination?

Yes.

Okay. I am also going to have to decline the nomination, but, again, I appreciate it. And I'm still available to help as I can. So Sue, do you accept your nomination?

Well, now that we have a very worthy candidate, I'll say no.

Okay. David can't, obviously. That would be weird. Joe, do you accept your nomination?

I have too much going on. I'm happy to help, but I can't K. Be on that right now.

Alright. So it looks like it's probably Eric, but we'll go

ahead and do a vote again.

So same format if everyone could say state their name and who they're voting for.

Eric Lachelle. Eric Lachelle.

Shannon Blair, I vote for Eric Lachelle.

Sue Barnes, I enthusiastically endorse Eric Lachelle.

David Hampton, Eric Lachelle?

Joe Chandler for Eric Lachelle.

Oh, awesome. Alright. Well, I do also before we end, I want to thank Sue for her time as as vice chair. She's so fantastic and helpful, and I think as chair helped me a lot with a lot of stuff. So I very much have enjoyed working with you the last year, Sue.

Thank you, chair, for serving as chair.

Oh, amazing. Yeah.

Okay. Any other discussion for that? I think we're we can move on to item number six, which is reports. So, yeah, again, thanks, everybody. We'll start with chair reports. So thank you all for the opportunity of the last year. I definitely learned a lot, and I really appreciate the the board and serving on it. And I look forward to serving on it as a member. We still have two vacancies. I think we had a really good candidate who hopefully will be moving towards.

It'll go to council for appointment at the end of the month.

Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. And did I do my math on 01/23/1945. No. We have okay. So we still have one position, and I don't know if we've had any additional people, applicants. Okay. So we probably need to, you know, get on recruiting. So if you guys know of anybody, and then maybe we can figure out, like, a Instagram post or something on the county page.

I have some people.

Okay.

I'm the official recruiter of the ESB.

Yeah. Okay. Cool. I don't think I have really anything else. So we'll go ahead and move on to board of public utilities. And Sue

I went to last night's meeting. Okay. Well, I attended last night's meeting. The Board of Public Utilities met last night for a regular session meeting and approved a number of things on the consent agenda. In addition, there were updates on some things that are relevant to us.

The new transformer in White Rock is underway. This is the one that failed a while ago and caused a prolonged outage in White Rock. But the good news is they're replacing it with much higher capacity transformer, which will allow, electrification in White Rock. And so that's that's that's an upgrade. And in addition, there are we now have a mutual aid agreement with PNM.

In case we have another outage like that, they'll support us in in keeping the lights on, so that's that's very helpful. Foxtail Flats, the operation date is full operation date now is 06/18/2027 for full start up. They might have some power coming to us in May 2027, but not a whole lot before full startup. They're working on-site prep. They've done road building.

They have panels secured for at least half of the facility. They mentioned mass quantities of panels are available are in hand to build this. Secured both of the transformers and are getting underway with battery procurement, and racks, and so forth. And those things are all domestically produced, so there shouldn't be any trouble getting those things. What else?

They're continuing to look into a couple of geothermal projects. Philo didn't give us any details on that, but at the moment they're still alive, but they're on hold due to transmission holdups with Pacific Core. But the projects are still a possibility for us in hopes that and they hope that that will move forward.

Thank you, Sue. Did they say where the geothermals are at?

I no. Again, Philo didn't give any details on this, so I really don't know much about the projects. Do you know anything, Angelica? Joe, do you know about this project?

I was in a meeting today with Lantel. They're looking at reactivating the Fenton Hill site.

Hot dry rocks.

Wow. And so there was a lot of discussion on that today in regards to what that would look like, who needs to be involved. It's early, early stages.

Okay.

Cool.

Okay. I thought there was also, like, geothermal, like, on Santo De Fonso Pueblo, maybe. Is that different? It

must be.

So the the the main thing today was a big push for for work up there

Okay. So it's a different

activating Fenton Hill and what that would look like.

Okay. So Cool.

Yeah. That's the one I was aware of too, the Fenton Hill. So okay.

But there's a lot of hair on that right now.

Hair. In other news, which wasn't, which is from the county manager, actually, our public information officer for the county, Julie Williams Hill, is retiring, and she's going to be replaced by Dave Krueger from the Valles Caldera National Park. So that will be interesting. And they say that he's been doing great work at the caldera, so he can do come and do great work for us. There was some talk about the chromium plume, starting remediation there.

It's very complex with many agencies involved. Hopefully, maybe we'll hear from Councillor Herman about the presentation from Mozart, as She spoke last night to BPU. She's here again tonight. And so I'll let her tell us about that. Coming up, there was quite a bit of chat about about getting balcony solar discussion onto the onto the agenda in sometime in the near future so that because several of the board members are interested in it and UAMPs you know, Utah has permitted this this type of low energy solar installation.

It was the first in the country, and so the question is, could we do that here in New Mexico? And so there'll be some discussion about that in the near future. And I think that that's it. That's most of what applies to us.

Any questions for Sue?

Yeah. Yeah. So Foxtel Flats, is that another year? Because I thought last month it was '26.

Yeah. It's been pushed back a year. Woah. There was yeah. There was first, there were substantial difficulties in getting the the BIA and the reviews done on the on the site. So that pushed it back quite a bit. And then there were delays in getting the equipment with tariffs and all that sort of thing. And so yeah, it's pushed back. They keep saying, I guess there is some absolute deadline, which is just a few weeks out from what they're hoping is going to be the operation date. So they're really up against the wall.

Okay. Alright. Well, thank you, Sue.

Mhmm.

David, do you have any updates from Transportation Board?

No. They didn't meet this month.

Okay. I do not have updates on parks and rec. Councilor Herman, do you have any updates for us?

Thank you, chair and board. We had let's see a work session this Tuesday. And we went through a number of things. We had a presentation from the Regional Development Corp, the RDC. And they work with small businesses all over Northern New Mexico.

They give out grants, quite a few here in our county. And they host a lot of meetings and sessions and workshops for the small businesses, direct investments to small businesses. And about half of their funding comes from community partnership office at the lab. The next thing we spoke about was introduction and a presentation on the North Mesa Recreation Master Plan. I don't know if you guys are familiar with this.

It's pretty impressive. I believe it's 26 acres out on North Mesa. Total budget of almost $13,000,000 which we don't have the funds for right now. Some of it is funded, but not all of it. I think it kind of started with this bike park.

It originally kind of started with a skills park for new bikers, young bikers, and has grown into just this pretty big plan with lots of other things in it. I personally think it's a really great plan. They did a really good job getting lots of input from the community. The process seemed to be very thorough. They are having kind of a phased approach.

It's like four different phases to do all of this. The parts that are funded are some of the ADA things and whatnot. So it's a lot, but I think it I personally think that the plan was well done. And we'll see how this kind of plays out. It was just an introduction, and so we'll be talking about it more in a couple of weeks.

The next topic was discussion on the Metropolitan Redevelopment Area, or the MRA. There's two MRA districts in our county. One is down in White Rock, and the other is kind of, they call it Downtown East. It's mostly centered around Merrimack. And the topic we were discussing was if there should be a citizen led commission to review the applications.

I thought it was an important conversation to have. My personal opinion is that I don't feel we really need to have this citizen led group. I know a lot of people are really concerned about transparency of this. Personally, I see lots of opportunities and I'm encouraging more opportunities. Maybe when one of these applicants comes along, they have kind of an introduction like they did for some items this past year, so to really engage the community more.

We're also a very, very small district area. In Albuquerque, I think they have 20 some MRAs. They need to have, you know, a commission that takes a look at these things for the county. I don't think we need that here. I think the most we will see in the near future is five, maybe six of these.

So we really looked at it, took a thorough look at it, and I that's my personal opinion. I really think it would slow the entire process down. And I just don't think it's needed at this time. But we'll be talking about it more soon. So and then as we have discussed a little bit tonight, we had a presentation by Mozart DevCo.

They are this waste to energy plant that they are putting down in Okiowinge. And it apparently, the power will not be coming to us. It's already contracted to go up to the Jemez. But, it would save our county a lot of money transporting our waste down where wherever it is that that gets transported to and save us tipping fees and transportation fees. It looks really interesting.

What they want from us, from our county, is our our trash. I mentioned today to Angelica, kind of makes me wonder how this will play out for our county. Will this make us recycle less, you know, if we're taking just all of this down there? And I don't really understand the science, and they really didn't explain any of that to us. But it it looks like a really interesting project. So I suggested that we could reach out to them and have them give a presentation to you all if you're interested.

Yeah. I'm sure some of it's like proprietary. Oh, yeah. But, yeah.

Yeah. So but it's kind of an interesting story. They talked about going and looking at our eco station, and they really liked the way it was set up, the design. And you look at their designs and their building kinda looks like the eco station, don't

you think? Oh, I haven't

seen it. Oh, yeah. It's like, oh, that's our eco station right there. You know? So I'm sure you have the contacts. If not, I'd be happy to reach out to these guys.

I have a oh, do you can I go first?

Yeah, yes, please.

Okay. I think, David, you mentioned that they said it was zero emission. How is that remotely possible?

So they they superheat it. They don't vent anything. And they convert it into a gas. And I think it's a combination of gases. And one is hydrogen. Yeah. And it drives the turbines and generates 200 tons of trash.

Yeah. Still okay. I have yeah. I would love to learn more about that.

If you take it offline,

you're going

have to do something without hydrogen gas. But it's hydrogen, who cares?

So could you I mean, I don't know if anyone will know the answer to this, in theory then you could could you take that hydrogen if it's hydrogen gas? Okay, never mind. I would love a presentation.

Okay. It's very non technical, but you you'd have the guys in front of you to ask questions.

Yeah. They mentioned is there anything they can't take in putting that sucker to burn?

There is. But I I don't know what. Okay. So but, yeah, they they wanna take a lot of our solid waste.

Yeah. Because, like, at what point do you just not give I mean, there's an over a bunch of recycling.

Exactly. When is it?

Give them everything and be done with it.

Yeah. But Especially for a It just doesn't feel right. You know?

Yeah. No. 100%.

This was against everything

we learned. System. Yeah.

I guess it would save a lot of money if we can just I don't I don't know. So let's talk later, and I I don't know if I just reach out to him or how

we can their contact information. I've been part of some of these initial conversations. So

The guy that spoke to us on Tuesday night, Steve Stringer, he's a local guy out of White Rock. Yeah. Yeah. So Okay.

I'll set that up.

Okay. And then we spoke about the council's strategic leadership plan performance indicators, working on the community dashboard, trying to make it a little bit more succinct and relevant. So we kind of went through all of that. We will be doing our community survey again this year. I think that happens every two years, I think this is the every other year, and this is the year to do that. So and that was really it. It went late enough. So do you guys I'll stand for questions.

Well, I do wanna thank you for being liaison because I think this is your last meeting maybe. Yeah.

Yes. I think so. And I'm now going to do the Board of Public Utilities. But I've really enjoyed being part of this board. I think you all make a real difference in our community. And your passion for what you do shines through. It's I've enjoyed being a part of it. So thank you for what you do.

Yeah. Thank you for the support.

Yeah. Thank you for thank you for liaisoning

You bet.

And county counseling.

You bet.

I'm making her term up, I think.

And Rin omitted the fact that she was elected as vice chair.

Oh, congratulations.

Congratulations. Why I get public utilities.

You get what? Like, first pick, kinda? Second pick?

No. That that job goes with vice chair position.

Oh, nice.

I don't know why.

Okay. So

Cool. Yeah.

I didn't know them. Nice. That's exciting. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah.

Alright. We'll move on to working groups and steering committee. I don't think Britton is here for Bee City Los Alamos. Okay. And they're paused. I do this every time. They're paused until

not winter. Now the bees come out.

Yeah. So do we have any updates from Los Alamos Sustainability Alliance? We do.

We actually met this week and had a lively discussion, a lot of projects going on. As I think I mentioned, Angelica and Abby have been putting together cooling kits, a list of cooling centers, so places people can go to cool off when it gets hot here, that are open to the public, have seating and water available so that people can go there. But also some kits that include things like fans and towels and that sort of thing to be able to be handed out by first responders at the senior centers. The police can give them out to people that they see that they think need them, have them available at the library. And we're going to have a work party to assemble those packets on February 10, in case anyone would like to get together with the LASA folks and stuff things into packets.

We've been approached by Christine Koblenz, who's part of the Jemez Mountain Trail Run Committee. And although they already do many sustainable things, apparently, with this trail run, they want to make it even more sustainable. The race is on May 9, and they're going to have aid stations and a table at the end and so forth, where they want to be able to divert as much material as possible from the runners, get as much as many things composted composted at reunity resources and recycled and so forth. So we talked a bit about what the logistics of that might look like, and there'll be some ongoing discussions to figure out how we can participate with that. One other possibility is to give the runners some pre education about how to minimize their waste during the race, and by electronic outreach when they register, to let them know what we're going to be doing there and how they can prepare to minimize their waste on the run.

And again, if anyone would like to participate, again, that's May 9, and so we'll need people to staff the booths, table, the booths, and that kind of thing. And you're yeah, maybe you'll be running, you can present an example to others. We had some more discussion about Abby Hayward's Green LA certification and Angelica's. So it's been supported, approved by us and BPU and the county council, and so that's going forward and being implemented in very short term. So we're in the process of taking a look at what the form is going to be and making suggestions on that.

And then lastly, we'll be involved in helping to launch the program and doing outreach to businesses to get them involved. Let's see, we had some updates from Bee City and Gaia's Pantry. Gaia's Pantry now has two refrigerators and they've moved their box their their food box, and Kok Yong is an absolute rock star. She now has a program with with China Palace to go to their buffet five days a week and with some volunteers and package up food that and that like 20 or 30 full meals every day, and take it to the refrigerators at the Unitarian Church to reduce food waste and feed people that need food. And she'd love help with that.

They do that in the in the middle of the afternoon, like 02:30 to three or so. And she has some volunteers, I'll probably help her out too. But anyway, it's an amazing it's an amazing thing. We had updates from Josh on tree recycling is ongoing right now, so if you haven't recycled your tree yet, this is the time to do that. Working on food composting and permitting and so forth.

The Library of Things is going to have some new things added to it. There's going to be an appliance cleaning brush, so that you can clean the gunk off your refrigerator coils and whatnot to improve efficiency there. And also a tool kit of things like caulking guns and spatulas and whatnot so that you can weatherize your home. They're going to repeat the sustainable landscape design course through an online platform that will have a discussion board, and that'll happen in March, so that you can learn to landscape sustainably. They're going to issue a new energy efficiency kit.

This is something that they've been giving out at the Nature Center and elsewhere for several years, and it's being updated. And they're going to have a workshop on January 9 at the Nature Center to let you know how to use the things that are in the box. On February 5, there'll be a screening of the movie Common Ground at the Nature Center. This is a movie about regenerative farming, and you're encouraged to attend. And they've scheduled two climate cafes at the Nature Center, one of them is taking place right now, for people to get to discuss their feelings about climate change.

There'll be another one on March 12. And let's see, there was some things about schools and the Eco Club, not a lot of moving forward there. And that's what I have.

Thank you, Sue.

Yeah. Oh, I just remembered. So for Bee City, they are hosting, or Britton is doing that class for sowing wildflowers on Saturday, January 24 at 2PM, so.

Okay.

With Annie Yarrow, I think.

Cool.

And I just want to point out that it's it's interesting that for the whole month we have ESP, Citizens Climate Lobby, and Climate Cafe all on the same night at the same time.

Schedule the cafe differently. Yeah.

It happens. There's only so many days.

We did bring that to their attention that maybe you all would have wanted to attend the Climate Cafe.

I just wanna say two things. I think doing the Jemez Mountain Trail Run, like, volunteering is very fun and manning a booth. So if we all wanna do it, except for Eric who will be running

Oh, you are wrong.

But, you know, we could all do it, and I don't know, maybe we get at the same booth. But it is fun, and it's really fun to just interact with the runners, so. Okay, cool. Thank you, Sue. I don't think we have any liaisons for the education outreach and outreach work group and then the community.

Sue, really? She's on that.

Yeah, I'm on that one too. Yeah,

so again, we're starting to work with our consultants, Firebrand, on how to improve, basically to roll out more education and outreach around climate action to the community. And we're starting to have meetings with them. They'll be actually coming to visit at the February, it looks like. They'll be here for a few days. And so we'll hopefully be able to meet with the board, as well as many community members and businesses and community you know, setting up community partnerships for doing more education and outreach and climate action and fun events and that sort of thing.

Although the meeting the other day was basically about branding and how to what kind of what our tagline will be and so forth, which is kind of interesting, but