Rwa Master Plan Ad Hoc Committee - Regular Meeting

Nope. All right. It is 2:32. We'll call the meeting to order. Joy, would you? Director Amil, Director Sado, Director Pereira, Paris Va. All right. Uh, do we did we get word from Pere from Supervisor Pereira from email correspond? Okay.

Um, well, public comment. This is the public's opportunity to speak on any item in this board's jurisdiction. Testimony is limited to three minutes per person. There any members of the public who wish to speak? Anybody online? All right, then we will move right into item number three. our Highway 59 landfill master plan update and discussion. We're going to go to Stacey or James.

James. [laughter] All right. Well, good afternoon. Uh, this is the first meeting of the Army master plan study ad hoc subcommittee. Uh, it's an opportunity for us to present some of the initial information that our consultant has put together. uh various components of our eventual master plan. Uh we wanted to first go through uh a discussion of the roles of the subcommittee. Uh basically that it's going to serve as a liaison between the governing board, agency staff and project consultants to ensure effective coordination, transparency and accountability through the development of the landfill master plan. Subcommittee will facilitate stakeholder engagement, monitor project milestones, ensure compliance with applicable regulations, and assist in prioritizing key initiatives. Um, can you send Michael through the Zoom? He's asking about being let in and unmuted. We'll go ahead and unmute him. And

since he's the only one, yeah, we need put him on camera. He has full control over his Okay. Yeah. Michael, can you hear us now? Can you You should be able to turn your camera on now. I can hear you. Can you hear me now? See me now. Oh, there we go. Yes, we can. There we go. That was frustrating. No problem. Uh, yeah, it looks like you're going to be the only one online. So, I'll back up a moment and we will go ahead and do some quick introductions. uh you know most of us in the room here but we'll go ahead and start on across the room from me Patrick [laughter] who

uh good afternoon I'm Patrick Wamble I'm the environmental resource manager with the regional waste authority afternoon MC executive director MC Va merc county board of supervisors director on MCA and chair this year Emily Hayden legal council from CG. I'm James Moore, director of the RWA. Bob Gardner, SCS engineers, Joy Young, sport clerk, Chris Bravo, multidia specialist. And I will add that Marissa is handling the multimedia for us and Joy is keeping minutes. Uh did want to let everyone know she is using a recording device to assist in the transcript.

It's everybody already knows.

That's public information already. Okay. So, I will jump back over to the roles of the subcommittee. Uh, basically, we're looking for some focused governance, oversight, and informed recommendations to support successful completion of mastering plan in alignment with both short and long-term strategic goals of the landfills. Specific responsibilities include reviewing and providing feedback on project deliverables related to operational and capacity assessments, waste forecasting and diversion planning, capital improvement and financial planning, stakeholder engagement strategies, and organizational evaluations of landfill operations. And I'll point out that that will be one of the focuses of today's meeting is some preliminary findings as to the uh structure of the RWA and the JPA. With that, uh we do have a memorandum attached to the agenda uh that covers the briefing of scope and deliverables. Uh this is really just an excerpt from the RFP that we did earlier in the year uh as way of some background. Uh last year in September, Director Proto Proso asked that an item be placed on the agenda to discuss the operations of the RWA uh with the possible looking at whether or not contracting out some of the operation would be of any benefit to the RWA. Uh in November, uh that item was heard and discussed. guidance was given to staff to go ahead and move forward with the master plan. Uh we came back to the board early in 2025 and cover discussed the scope of the RFP for the master plan. Uh earlier this spring we did the RFP. SCS engineers was selected as the successful proposal and

we I'll continue

kicked off with our kickoff meeting in July along with site visits to both landfills by the team from SCS. So in the uh three or four months since then uh we've begun developing some initial uh I'll say conceptual ideas about ways to expand the capacity at the highway 59 landfill. Uh depending on on our time today we may start just introducing some of those at a high level. Uh the main thing we want to go over today is uh a technical memorandum that we prepared SCS has prepared. Uh and I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Bob and let him talk a little bit about why agencies or organizations would look to contract out part of their operation particularly in the solid waste arena. Uh by way of introduction, Bob has over 40 years of solid waste experience with SCS engineers. uh he has actually retired but is still working on special projects for SCS. I've known Bob for almost 20 years. [laughter]

So um with that and we also have Michael Bradford online who is just joined on too. So is that okay? Hey Vidya, go ahead and introduce yourself real quick to the room.

Oh sure. Um my name is Vidya Vishwanathan and I'm the director of engineering for SCS's southwest region. Um and I've uh been involved in this project at a high level tracking where things are going and how how we're doing. Um on a on an individual level my expertise is in landfill gas um and some some of the solid waste facility planning work. And I'm in a hotel room with poor Wi-Fi, so I'm just gonna go off camera to save bandwidth. All right, sounds good. Thanks. Thank you.

I've been I've been with SCS for 45 years, 46. Um and in that period I've worked with a wide range of authorities and municipalities on solid waste management and have seen a wide range of approaches that have been taken to how you manage both facilities and operations that deal with solid waste. And so one of the ta the first task that we really have been uh charged with is looking at the advantages and disadvantages of whether authority should privatize it is it operations. It's a good question. The question that lots of organizations ask themselves and uh the we were talking yesterday. I mean the way the way I kind of look at this is like when you take your car or any appliance or whatever into get inspected something and and they say how is it and they go through a series of diagnostics with respect to that piece of equipment and they they test a number of things to see whether that that piece of equipment is operating well. We did a similar kind of evaluation with respect to the question of whether Merrced should privatize its landfill operations. And so we looked at a number of different factors that we thought would be appropriate uh as we've looked at privatization over the years. And I've worked for places that privatize their operations and others that self-reform them. So uh neither one is is wrong. Neither one is right, so to speak. Um and so we looked at a number of factors. Cost that seems to be a big deal. Uh are there some cost benefits to privatization or not? The level of of service that you can give and the efficiency of that service. Impact to employees. You employ a number of people at the landfill and what impact that would have. Impact to achieving your waste reduction and recycling goals. Uh

community pride and public perception in terms of how this this organization runs and does its things. The organizational values. ability to fund future capital projects. What do I mean by that? We've been involved with various places where they have not planned well and so they're in a case for example they didn't appro appropriately acrew for closure and they get to a place where they go you know I've got $25 million I got to spend on closure I don't have it and they see they're in trouble so they need capital from somewhere else and so they might consider potential privatization using somebody else's money to do that capabilities of staff I've been involved with cases where the staff has turned over and things have not gone well and so the organization says we have to come up with a solution and we can't find the people to do it so we privatize this operations and then the other

can I pause for just a second I think we have director on uh Zoom so I just want to make sure he hears you okay so that he's not on for if we need to move there's a speaker right next to you but Matt if you Matt if you can hear Blink twice. Yeah, blink twice. Um or I guess it's just if you can't hear, please let us know. Text, call, whatever you need. But we're going to assume you can hear us. Okay. So, you're driving. I don't know how to gauge that, but if you can hear us on your phone, can you give us a thumbs up at any time, please? Yeah. And then he's driving. Okay. But we do have a speaker.

Okay. Good. Okay. We're gonna just Okay. Just want to make sure. And also for the record, Joy, if you can note, he joined at 243. All right. Sorry about

no problem. So in terms of we asked the question, when might RWA consider contracting out its operations and we concluded for one or more of the following reasons or criteria criteria were u found to be the case. One, difficulties complying with regulatory requirements. You're in trouble. You just can't seem to get out of trouble. Uh trouble operating the landfill and maintaining staff. not achieving regulatory compliance or organics diversion or the goals that are set by the uh the state and not managing or planning or controlling your your operational capital cost. Those might be reasons that you might say, "Okay, we need to do something different differently." And so,

but wouldn't that be more of a management kind of you can manage those regulatory items like fines or spending basically, right?

It's it's a combination of two things. Number one, you have compliance on the operational level. For example, do I have the right abil do I have the staff that are trained that are dedicated to achieving regulatory compliance? Um, and semi, but it could also be on the management side that you don't have the management staff in place to do it. And so those would be reasons why you might consider if if those in fact were a problem. And so we looked at those and said, where does RWA fit in that? Is there is there a problem with complying with regulatory requirements? And the answer is no. We didn't find any problem complying with regulatory requirements. Were there trouble operating and maintaining the landfill and having competent staff? No. you have a very competent staff, very experienced, very dedicated to what you're doing and that's commendable. Uh third is not achieving regulatory your recycling goals, organics diversion goals and it's clear you've spent significant capital recently uh and over the years to do that. So you're you're achieving those kinds of those requirements. And uh the other one was not managing or controlling operational capital costs. And it's very clear to me that you have a very disciplined approach regards to your your operational planning, your budgeting process, and your capital planning. Uh you know, in in terms of all the capital that you spent in the last several years, for example, you plan that out. You you plan your your tip fees accordingly. You brought some outside waste in in order to cover those costs. Really strategic in how you're going about doing that. So as the scorecard, at least that we put together as we were looking at the evaluation was I'll call it green. I had green, yellow and red. Green being looks good, yellow being yeah some issues, red being failure kind of thing. And there were no yellows or reds in that kind of an assessment. Uh so in terms of the the conclusion that we reached that there were there and we also did a survey of of other municipalities in the region

what what are they doing and what are their costs and uh is there some uh imbalance in the tip fees that you're charging compared to let's say somebody that is outsourcing their operations and we didn't find that to be the case and in fact you got some really competitive rates in the region. Uh so from a financial perspective you seem to be managing uh th those factors uh very well. Um so our our fundamental conclusion is that you have the team uh that is capable and competent to do the work that has to be done and you're doing so in an efficient manner. uh based on our review and based on the experience that we have working with a number of other places um you have demonstrated flexibility and dealing with challenges associated with capital needs and you're solving those as you go along and you got good planning by the fact you're doing this master plan is commendable because you're thinking ahead. I I I just was involved with a board meeting this week uh with the Southeastern Public Service Authority where they approved a contract for $250 million roughly $200 to $250 million to build a new advanced waste processing facility. And the advice I've always given uh municipalities is think long term. Uh for some reason solid waste facilities are kind of a stepchild it seems in many cases where they go they don't think like water and wastewater. thinking long, you're thinking generationally. You're putting in systems to deal with it because you're going to have to have water and you're going to have to have waste water. Well, you're going to have to have solid waste disposal generationally. So, when somebody says, "Well, I have 60 years of capacity. Isn't that enough?" I go, "No, you need to be thinking generations in ter if you can, if you have the resources to do so." And that will come up in a bit in terms of talking about the master planning and some of the things that we're thinking about with respect to potential future expansions of the landfill. planning for that for the future. And so the master plan kind of uh I think what you by the fact that

you're doing the master planning demonstrates I think a real um strategic mindset that is important in terms of um your performance and the question as to whether you need to privatize your operations I think is is not the case in um going forward. So that's kind of a big picture of what we did in terms of looking at the issue of privatization. You could always, as we indicate in our memo, if if if you were concerned that your our cost your costs were out of whack and our basic independent assessment is or not, you're you're very competitive. Um, you could always go out for RFP if you wanted to. Um, I've been involved with one case in Valuchia County, Florida, where they did that. They went out, it was crazy, but they went out and, uh, issued an RFP and they allowed the, in this case, the county to respond to that RFP. they stayed they stayed internal because they obviously had a the private side you got a profit issue you have to deal with and uh that does have an impact on the overall cost of things. So that's kind of a a big picture on on the assessment of privatization. Uh you I think you are doing a great job compared to what you know what I've seen elsewhere and um your manager and yourselves well. So, we didn't see anything fundamental flaws. It would say, "Hey, you need to do something different. If it's not broke, don't try to fix it."

The comments came from, you know, probably more of a a selfch check to see how we're doing. And it is it does what, you know, government doesn't do very many things well and and typically the private sector can do things better. At least that's my opinion. Uh and so it's kind of just to see put it out there where do we compare to it and is is does there look like there's an option out there that where they could do it more efficiently at a lower cost. And so from what I'm hearing from you your research and that doesn't seem to to support that. And one of the things that Bob and I talked about was actually cost, right? When when you privatize the cost is generally in the first couple years going to be very low, but after that it balloons because they're going to look at comments, right? And so, you know, one of that's one of the things I was talking to Bob about like, hey, can you compare the rates like other landfills that are privatized? So, Madera is a pretty good example. I think their tip fees are what $175 a ton. I think San Bonito is the other one that's 65, but they're actually going to be closing here pretty soon. And so those are those are the kind of the factors on my part where we talk about operations. It's the cost, right? At the end of the day, we can't if you're a contractor, we can't reduce their cost. We can't lay off their staff, right? We can't say, "Hey, you're capped at X." They're going to say, "We want more money." Because they they're worried about the bottom line. Yeah. We have no bottom line. My experience and I've worked with a lot of municipalities is I found very few that don't do it well and and that's maybe an exception and probably the solid waste

uh solid waste for some reason the solid waste business is a is a is a a unique business and people who get sucked into it um we use the can't get out you know it's [laughter] kind of like it's like the mafia like the family kind of thing. You just can't get out. But the they're the highly dedicated group of professionals and uh I think that's reflected in the ER operations here. Okay. Yes. I mean so that was you know realistic um

this being that you are the soul that means I got the biggest say. Well if he wants to speak up at any time he can. Well, I just I know that there are a few board members who are particularly interested in this topic. So, yeah. Okay. So, I just I uh you know our our number our kind of number one before we did too much more on the master plan was to address this particular issue because if it would help determine how we move forward and if there we so I guess it's more of a I'm gauging with you. Do you feel like there's an adequate determination here that we can safely say the rest of this master plan we can move forward on the assumption that we are I would stand behind that.

Okay. I from what I've heard like I would stand behind that and as an advisory committee to ultimately the full board that would be the position that I would take is you know when you see what these other numbers look like um you're afraid if it if it isn't broke don't fix it right and so then that takes us to the next step is okay [clears throat] I at least have made the determination jump in anytime you would like uh is that okay well let's get pass that then let's move on to the next thing now because I don't necessarily there there wasn't if if you would have came to me and said hey you guys are running in some reds in this area so maybe there's something to look at but I don't I didn't never think that was the case to begin with so let's move on to the next

perfect thank you all right we appreciate that yeah as you said you know we really wanted to you know none of this is going to be final till we bring the final report to the board sometime next summer but there are you know kind We're looking for that feedback so that we can continue moving ahead on some of the other things. Uh, and understanding you do have a time commitment, right? You need to be out of here. We'll work on it. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's the thing. We we uh didn't really have a hard uh format or agenda for today, but we did want to start talking about some of the options we've looked at at Highway 59 to gain additional airspace. Uh as it stands right now with our phase six on the northern end of the property, we have about 28 and a half years of air capacity left airspace based on our current rate of trash coming in. Uh that includes the material that we're bringing in from Mariposa and Twalamy. You know, as you know, those are communities that no longer have active landfills. Uh and again, you know, the east side of the county obviously is our our largest waist shed with the cities of Merced, Atwater, and Livingston. Uh when we talk about some of the regulatory things that Bob discussed earlier, uh earlier this year, we did mitigate the landfill gas migration issue we had on the east side of the landfill, which has opened up uh the availability for us to move forward with the valley fill, which is filling in that space between the original unlined cells one through four and cell five, which has a liner under it. Michael, could you bring up that um drawing of what we're talking about?

We just uh Yeah. Yeah. Drawing number two, I think the second page of the set.

I've actually got the the the tetrate techch draw. If you if you want to specifically look at the valley fill, we can look at that, too. I've got the tetrch drawings open. Cool. So, uh, actually Patrick and I had a phone call yesterday with Tetrate Tech, our engineers of record, uh, discussing the beginning of the permitting for the Valley Fill. Uh, the SQL was done a number of years ago. Uh, pending the mitigation of Probe 45, uh, the authority had not moved forward with beginning the permitting process with Cal Recycle and the water board. So those are things that we are now looking at. Uh that picture there to the left hand side is to the north. Uh kind of that area right in the center is the original infrastructure of the landfill including the original scales. Uh the old poleb barn maintenance shop.

I don't see any of that on no. It looks like a little fish. Not sharing. Am I sharing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we can see it now. Michael. Okay, good. That didn't for context, we're talking about this area right here in between the the southern mountains. This is the old entrance. So, you come in this way now. The scale house. Here's the old entrance. This is where all the uh the old uh uh recycling recycling

and scale and the maintenance shop. This used to be the main kind of active yard which has all been now relocated up where we are. So the valley fill is essentially like this is these are closed. Are they closed? I I always one through four is closed, five is inactive. So the valley fill is essentially lining this remaining segment and being able to just round this out into one big and based on our preliminary uh work that looks to be about 12 years worth of airspace. So that would be in addition to the

in addition to the 28 and a half. So that' take us out to about 40 years of capacity which you know you just heard Bob say that's not enough. [clears throat] We we want to make sure there's a plan for after when all of us are gone. So uh in working with the SCS team we've begun looking. All right. Yeah. Now Michael, let's go back to drawing two and show the other end of the property there. Trying to get it to where I can click on my Zoom keeps bringing this tab down up on top. I don't know if you guys can see it, but let me Yeah, not yet. Here we go.

Okay. Yeah. Now, if you can just uh enlarge the screen a little bit. Here's our entrance. Now, this is where I was just talking about the valley would be closing this. This is the valley. Okay. So, 59 is here. Yeah. Interest goes that way. You're used to kind of being here's the office and everything. So, that's I assume we're talking about the purple.

Yep. So, well, before we talk about the purple shaded area, want to mention that area to the left hand side that's outlined in yellow. uh that is uh two parcels that are currently have a on them about 160 acres give or take. Uh it's voluntarily for sale and I'll let Nev we've we're awaiting an appraisal

today. So as you mentioned one parcel is 161 acres, one's about 10 acres. Um those parcels what we had a close session about in September. Basically with mitigating that gas well, it allows us to do the value fill and then kind of now do that little I don't know I want to say like a L boot kind of magenta. Yeah. I wouldn't know how to say it but like it looks like looks like a boot. It looks like a clown boot. Um but there's in the back area as you can

Yes. Scope Vanna [laughter] and Dave, you can come up here as well. But in this area right here, currently there's a uh what's pond water pump, right? If we do acquire this piece of property, um that would move over here, which then will give us some additional air. Currently in this area right here is where we have our leeching pot, right? That's where all the sludge as Patrick and Jay were explaining to it that comes from landfill gets pumped to here and that is and that purple actively acts as a buffer.

Yeah. Right now, yeah, that's that's the southern portion of landfill. Part of it was an excavation pit when phase one through four and five were open. Uh so some of it's kind of at original ground surface, some of it is a pit. Um so we began looking initially at what airspace can we gain on our [clears throat] existing footprint? What can we do? So there's various options. None of these are directly tied to acquiring that additional acreage. Uh the idea is it's voluntarily for sale. Right now we have housing development Belleview North already on the books that will be about a mile away from our southeast corner. Someone right here. Yeah. So

they they know because it was part of the close session we power presentation.

So you know we began looking at what we could do on the existing footprint. If we can acquire that property as Dav said we can relocate some of our ancillary features such as the storm water and leech ponds. But even if we don't we can do some things on site. Uh we can the valley fill can be expanded to not just fill that valley come over the top of the original cells one through four down into kind of the toe of the boot down there which is a a big open area that was originally a buffer for the landfill gas migration. Uh we were on the phone with Tetrate Tech yesterday and and one of their planners was involved with this about 25 years ago and you know there was an idea that one point they talked about putting waste in there but because of the landfield gas issues they decided not to. Well, we've resolved that. So, we can look at that space uh to begin gaining. And again, you know, these numbers we're looking at right now are just kind of very high level conceptual. But if we look at doing just the area we kind of have outlined now, the L-shaped boot, and help me out here, Patrick, that is option 2A.

I can scroll down, Michael. Yeah. So, option option 1 a here is assuming you can get that purchase and and acquire that southern property and we can move the storm water ponds onto that property and develop this whole bootshaped area all the way, you know, east to or yeah, east to west. Uh, right. So, that's option 1 A. Um, and how do you how many how what's the life on that option? About 30 years.

That's what that's what this shows. uh this brown line. So we actually looked at it option 1 A and option 1B. So 1A uh would tie into the proposed height of the valley fill uh max height of the valley fill uh fill. So we would just tie into that that crest line. That would give you about 30 years. And then if you wanted to, you could go another 50 foot lift on you know vertical expansion on top of that because you got more deck space up there to work with. Um, and that would buy you another 10 years on top of that. So, this brown line would be option 1 A. This green line would be another vertical expansion on top of that of 1B. So, it is about a 50 foot

lift on top of that. So, is that about 40 years then? Yeah. 40 years on top of 40 years on top of what we currently we currently Yeah. [clears throat] Yeah. This is an additional field project. And then you said that is contingent upon buying the piece. That is not contingent. It was a contingent on mitigating that gas. Contingent. Yeah. That those numbers option 1 A option one is contingent on because we have if you don't buy the land then we have you have to keep the storm water pond here. So that's what option 1 B is

buy this land then it gets truncated a little bit. So you have to keep this infrastructure right here. Yeah. So that that would be alternative two or option two which would cut about overall uh about five years off. We could still do the vertical expansion on top. So instead of having about 40 years, we have about 32 years. Yeah. 33. Yeah. 30 33 plus additional what the 30 we have plus the value flow. That gives about close to 70 years of uh landfall life. Actually almost 70 take over 75 75 years

and that doesn't not include the parcel that if we do acquire it that could give us some additional years but and let's go ahead Michael and uh look at the option for phase six for the vertical lift. Yeah, same concept. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. No, just kind of same thing on the north end of the property where we currently have a height limit of 360 feet. Uh we could go back in and request permission to go another 50 ft high there. Uh and that would buy us about another 7 and a half to eight years of airspace. So again, none of these are final.

We're just looking at what could we possibly do within the existing footprint. Obviously, that's, you know, the best way for us to move forward without having to acquire additional property. Uh, our initial thought about the, uh, property to the south of the landfill is that that helps us establish a buffer zone from future development. Good afternoon, Mayor.

Thanks for entertaining me on my car ride down. Think it's like listening to a podcast on land. So with option 1B and alternative three, alternative three, that would give us about almost 88 years of airspace. 87.7, but 88 years of airspace just in the existing footprint of the landfall, right? As we that's not putting into if we do acquire that property next next to it doesn't require it doesn't include take that into consideration or anything. So 88 years as Bob says still too short. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. But I mean

yeah and so as you know since we were they were looking at 59 first we will be talking to this group about the next step is you know next time we meet probably about there'll be more discussions about Billy Wright as well. So, and the thing about the the master plan, the benefit of it is it it helps to determine what you do all your other facilities as you think about life going forward. It it says, well, we don't want to double double have to move stuff if we don't have to. Can we or else have to double move it? And this is at the current tenure that we're taking in. Correct.

Right. That's the caveat. This is based on our existing incoming waste rate. you know, we're not crystal ball forecasting any changes in the waist stream.

Is there factors that you put into it? Like if you look over the last 10 years what we've increased and I know you had some downturns in there, but let's just say if you started out a year at a thousand and you went up to,20 and then it went up to,30 maybe. we have given SCES is if you'll recall last year uh transportation planning Elizabeth's group did that demographic forecast for population growth and whatnot they have that plan they will use that and base future waste quantities on that potential growth. Uh again, you know, we don't really know what the state's going to do about diverting other material, banning something else from the landfill.

And uh the model we have allows for variation. So scenarios. So for example, if you say we don't want to import as much waste, whatever that might be. So you knock off a bunch and that you know has pretty material effect on landfill life. So you can you can look at those at least get a sense of where how that plays into the overall picture of of the That affects all kinds of things. It affects capital planning. So when I need to build my next cell, when I need to do closures, when I need to do postclosure, all those things are tied into the waste disposal rate. And that's primary factors.

And so Bob and Michael, does all this tie into when we do start talking about our rates and all that, how much airspace and what the And one of the things we will be talking about is capital, right? what kind of capital projects we're going to have in the next 20 next 20 years. I guess obviously these some of these cells are be cheaper to construct cuz some of the they're already lined like the value fill half the cell is already lined so you just got to do the other half which saves us about I know Patrick used to tell us the numbers like by doing the value fill it saves us about they could give couple

so you can line the valley fill as it was originally designed for the same price as one of our cells in six and it's like at least twice the capacity airspace capacity for the same price. So that was the attractiveness of that V-shaped valley. So I think the going rate right now was six million to $10 million for construction. Yeah, I'd say six ballpark. Yeah, it's probably around 10.

So we're getting double the footprint for the same cost and then obviously we don't have to pay for the additional trash that we put on the waste. your union cost goes down a lot. So what prevented us from going adding the 50 feet on the north side to begin with? Was there different regulations then? Part of it squa in order to get our solid waste facility permit. We had to have squa that sets a height limitation. Um you know that changed.

Uh so this actually doing that lift is fairly straightforward. It's not um like a hard permit. um issue. Uh it's just a matter I think more about timing like we still have you know time and so we can do it and really it's like addressing aesthetics and whatever like few things that come up um between now and when we do it. It's not it's just we haven't done it but actually probe 45 wouldn't let us increase our permitted capacity at the facility at all. So once that was mitigated we're Yeah. So now that we opened up a lot of doors and and we're how confident are we in that that that is like for real 45. Yeah.

It's been almost a year now that it's been clean. We've mitigated it and the regulators have said that that that frees us up. It's not like a oh we got to hope and pray and send them a bunch of stuff like yeah but maybe not the cow recycle list of value list. Okay. Yeah. So far it's the control um that we've put in is is adequate. So what so I guess then what's the ask what's the question here? Is it just more for information?

Yeah, more for information. Right now as I said these are you know very preliminary highlevel concepts uh as we move through the master plan and start tying in you know a lot of what happens at highway 59 may be affected by what we decide to do at Billy Wright. you know, it's if we don't find a viable way of expanding the footprint over there, are we back in a discussion about a transfer station? Does that waste then come over to Merrced? Uh, you know, those are questions we'll have to look at as we move through all the alternatives. So, do as part of your studying it, do you do you bring that scenario in that says if what's what's left on Billy Right?

Right now about 12 years. Yeah. So 12 years. So if you just in your modeling you just said okay 12 years that ends now all that comes over here 300 tons. Yeah. If we figured about 300 tons because at that point we wouldn't necessarily bring in the imported waste. We would only be addressing the incount waste. There'd be no sense to import waste into a transfer station to then bring it over here.

And so what we did like for for B but county had a similar situation. We're looking at expansion alternatives for them and we had a menu and which allowed the board to look at it and say okay we had like a citizens convenience center we had new access roads we had new scale house we had an admin building we have um they had a whole series of things of of wish list from the master plan as as a big master plan they had ability to say if I didn't do this what does it do to my rates and how does it do to my reserves and and all that kind of It was very helpful for them to to be able to make some intelligent decisions. I think you guys did few counties like two years ago their study master plan study.

Yeah. And they they kind of ran into the same situations as uses, right? Looking at a landfill, you know, out of county waste and what's what is it going to look like for the next 20 30 years? And so they had the same concerns and our scope of work kind of tailored off of what they've kind of put in there. So, I mean, they're they they're the one that debuted county and I read it was pretty good uh report that they had for them. I mean, I think we all want to make educated decisions, right? That's where I think it where to for us. I I'm from the west side and and my I don't have a challenge with imports

as much as I have a challenge that we let people that import their trash pay less than and I know we're working on it. Yeah. But there's people that pay less than what our own residents paid because of we had bond payments and that's coming to an end at some point. And then at that point, I know we you need a certain amount of capital coming in to be able to run the organization because you're going to pay one way or the other, right? If it costs X to run it, we might if we're not bringing in enough trash to facil then then rates are going to have to go up. I just don't want to be subsidizing, right,

other parts of California, namely over the hill, that are bringing their trash here and and and trucking's not cheap. And so, if they can pay our rate and truck it here cheaper than what they can, then then I don't think we're charging enough. I mean, we we probably want some of it, right? But but if they're going to to me if they're going to be bringing the trash in and and taking up our airspace that our residents have invested in for lots of years, um that needs to be set at at a price point that it's like still might make sense for them to drive it over the hill, but they can't be getting such a great deal. Otherwise, let them deal with it.

Did we just did our study for another county that same question they they had they were bringing in CND waste. They had a separate CND landfill and they wanted construction demotion, I'm sorry. And so they they were um [clears throat] the question that they asked was how much can we increase this rate considering where all the transfer stations are and where the other landfills are. Where's the break point in terms of where the transportation costs, which is what you were getting at, where that where does where's that fine balance? And that takes a little bit of doing to figure out, but it's it's figure out how to Yeah. I mean, if you look at Santa Clara right now, it's $129 a ton. Ours on the ours is 4305. It's I mean, for that's our gate rate.

I know on a 25 ton load and they're making they're making they're make even if they charge them $100, they're still making out $29 a ton, right? And and in San Bonito is $65 a ton, but their landfills what sent to close here about 15 years, 12 years left. Yeah. And so they're not taking as much waste as they're spo they're doing anymore. I think they're going to be shipping it out to I think you said Monteray. They're talking about going to Monteray. Yeah.

Yeah. And so you know to your point yes the goal is by next year have them closest to the as our gate rates as possible which would be more than some of our jurisdictions are paying and then by 2027 paying gate rates. So if you want to if you want to bring your waist in, do you pay the gate rate as as a regular mom and pops to Walmart pops?

Yeah. I even think about it the other way. Imagine that we're charging them more and and we're doing so good with our planning and our projects and our cash flow and all that that we say, well, we don't we don't need to raise our rates. We keep our rates here, but we're charging them more. our our residents gonna take up airspace. I mean, that's a decision that has to be made. Yeah. Because everything gets a lot different if it if if uh Billy Wright closes, of course, and then it gets more expensive for everybody on the west side by nature of just geography that their trash is is going to cost them more because they're going to have the trucking that's involved in it.

And then, you know, as we talk about I think Bob could answer this question. I think you and what you're alluding to is charging a higher rate for out of county waste and which I think we could do but we have to look into it as a as an alternative and then that could be an alternative like hey you want to bring any waste pay us $50. Now let's say I'm an individ for example when they're they closing 12 years they are talking about building a transfer station and sending their waste up to Monterey

at probably$85 to $100 a ton. Um, and I'll, you know, as far as the the the rate structure goes, we have to kind of semantically address it as our gate rate can be higher than our jurisdictional rates and we can charge out of county the gate rate. when you start trying to outright say you're charging the out of county more, there are some federal decisions on interstate waste flow that perhaps we have to be aware of. Well, that's why I said we need to look into those kind of factors, right? Yeah.

Um, currently Twami

has a transfer station they bring all the way to 59, right? They they have they don't have a landfill. Madera and Mariposa is they have small amounts they're putting in it but they're still bringing in what a couple hundred dollar a couple hundred tons a week or something like that take gift so our foothill communities are hurting they're so I know there's Mariposas depending on where they're at they either take it to or it's cheaper for them to Merced I think there's about $100 a ton too so I mean that's the part that that Yeah. No, I I think we we we can accomplish what you want to do. We just have to massage it a little bit to make sure it'll pass the the eye test legally.

You know, that's why I I think what supervisor, director, however you want to refer to today, super director. Super director. Um but the is is that you're going to affect the mom and pops at a higher rate, right, as they're Merced County residents. Yeah, and that's that's and that goes back to I mean this is not correct when you talk about the illegal dumping right is have some people that are doing it just because they're just then there there could be potentially people outly can't afford to

one of one of the things that we're going to be looking at as part of this you know is is the relationship between the gate rate and the jurisdictional rates as you know when we went through that discussion two years ago the jurisdictional rate differentials, you know, we those went back 30 years. Yeah. Doing away with that will go a long way towards being able to, you know, saying, "Okay, the jurisdiction rate applies to everybody in the jurisdiction, not just the waste that's brought in by the franchise hauler or, you know, on this side of the city of Merced, but anybody any resident that has a Merced County license pays that rate." That's

and and that's that's I think one way we work towards that to where say the gate rate only applies to that waste that yeah is coming from out of the county and it you know like I said it's semantics you can discount but you can't necessarily sircharge if that makes sense. Yeah [laughter] it's all just Yeah. Hey, it still works.

Yeah. So, yeah. So, I think this is just we just talked about how 59 we can expand our tonnages without airspace without increasing our footprint. Um, do you guys have any questions as No, I mean I think I think it's it's it's really smart of us to look within, right? because who knows that property might be for sale and they might want a crazy price for it and we're not um able to pay that price, right?

So, we need to look within uh and then I think if I understand imminent domain laws unless you're ready to use it in the next 10 years, can't really imminent domain it. So, there's which I don't really not a fan of, but if we had to, we had to. But, so we're not nowhere near that one. We're sitting there with 30 years. Yeah. 40 years. Yeah. I mean, you know, if that land stays as an orchard, that's a great buffer for us. But just a little background on it. The orchards are not in that great of shape. I think riser per could tell you they're they're mismanaged. So, the owner took them over, took over the property again, and they're just tired of farming.

No. And and I think that there's there's other levers that can be pulled when it comes to that, right? I mean, if if the RWA when it came time to the zone and plan, you know, if they wanted to change the zoning from agriculture to say residential or something, I would think that whether I'm guessing that would be the city would be doing that. That wouldn't be the county. The city would be definitely would be um sending letters to the city planning department, you know, right? Letting them know um like, hey, landfill's kind of been here for a while now. You guys want to go put houses next to it? That's probably not a good Well, I don't think and I don't think anybody wants to smell lamp on a hot summer day. I mean, it's pretty foul.

Believe it or not, there's people that don't want to smell a dairy on a hot summer day, but yet they they smell like close to the dairy and then wonder why it smells. Well, money smell that dairy smell is money smell. So, I can tell you that smell like that. Every time I smell, somebody's making money on that, right? Either milking or cow. Not a lot, but back in the days. Back in the days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For Thanksgiving next to a dairy. [laughter] So once you smell it, you'll smell like money to me. Somebody's making money right now. Nice. Beautiful hill. I mean, probably. That's pretty. Not in the summer time, bro. It's all

determines the smell of dairies has more to do with the management of that dairy. You're always going to have a little smell. The ones that really smell bad, they don't manage their dairies properly. They don't mind the smell. Yeah, the group was far smell that's that's bad worse. So yeah, I mean again at this point you know if you've got any other input or I want to back up you heard it on the phone but the original thing that they kind of talked about was kind of as you were getting on was just you know there was a there was a comment about privatizing or whatever and what I'm going to say what you did Bob right? Yeah,

Bob said, you know, he kind of did like a industry type of like selfch check on it and I heard Okay, you heard all that. I just want to make sure if you have any comments on that if you No, it seems like we're doing good. So, but we got a great board. So, you know, the reflection of our what we do. I would love to take credit for [laughter] the best of you guys doing that. Um, okay. So is there a next step we're talking about or is this what this is what we we will uh schedule another subcommittee meeting I don't know whether December probably not probably early I'm going to tell you January somewhere yeah probably J mid January time let everybody get the new year

and and the thought then is you know we'll maybe have a little more in-depth about highway 59 we'll know what's happening with the property acquisition you could have an item for this board as a close session a done deal or not um And then we'll hopefully have some preliminary ideas about Billy, right? One thing we probably will be bringing to the board is the operational of the landfill like the pros and cons and tenants putting that to Yeah. put it that well if somebody goes I don't care where you're going to privatize then and so then then we then we have to shift the whole planning now to like how's what is our tip piece going to be and what is how's it going to look you know all that changes

I mean well I mean and it says right on there this we're just an advisory committee yeah but it's it's advisory committee also like I say is a leaison between staff and the consultants and the board and advocates and so whatever you guys decide like no yeah yeah I mean I think we could maybe bring a discussion item for further direction do you want to incrementally approve phases of the master plan or you know do we just somehow set yeah

I'll leave it to legal counsel how we want to approach give me a rocky eyebrow right there well I think basically I want to say approve approving but I kind of say okay we talked about this does anybody have any questions if not now we're going to move on to the next phase of it'll be probably this part I mean I think you have to approve the master plan as one document yes and I think you can seek direction intermittently but right yeah probably more like seek direction on that part yeah because it changes what you're doing I mean I don't know I don't think it should change it I think it ultimately whether you keep it in house or If you were to private, you'd still want to have a master plan. Oh yeah.

I don't think the master the the fundamental master plan wouldn't change in terms of where you want to expand, where you want to go to in the future. That's going to be the same. Also, it would be change. It would be your staffing and equipment and well also your gate rates and your rates, right? Would be affected and which would be an unknown because you you'd have to bid that out in order to understand it. I might miss it earlier, but what's the ideal amount of uh number of years you guys are looking for? 88's not enough. He wants a thousand. A thousand. The way I put it, 80 is a great That's a pretty good number in in the industry. I mean, that's pretty pretty significant. In terms of industry standards, what's there is no industry standard. [clears throat] The standard is is get as much as you can.

For privates, privates landfills are based on the assumption I'm going to consume as fast as I can because because I have a fixed capital investment and if I can re put that volume in a shorter period of time, have lower operational costs, I make more money. Municipalities on the other hand is a service to provide a service to the community for as long as you possibly can. So that per unit cost is is not the driving factor.

It seems like maybe the private business wouldn't necessarily be good. Well, as then as as we wrap up, the other thing I just want to talk about because we're here and we're talking about landfill and I think it's I think it's uh part of our discussion and I don't know council

I really do want us to and I know now that you've heard me say this when we talk about our rates and discussing our rates I I really think that we need to come up with a a figure that goes into that that per ton charge that is solely dedicated for helping with the um illegal dumping. We're paying whether it's in the city, whether it's in the county, the residents are paying for this stuff to be picked up anyways, right? It's just so so you know, when you look at a tonnage, how many ever tons we take in a year, whether that's a dollar or $2 a ton, that goes into account to help mitigate that. and and it's really it affects the county probably more so than it does the the city jurisdictions, but we're that that's money that goes into our public works department that is now being is being paid. Some of it is direct cost, some of it is indirect cost no matter what. And and

give you a solution. That's Sunday right there. Yeah, I am. But here's the thing is I go to South Styles Park and you clean it all up on Friday and you come back on Monday and there's a whole

nuts. So I was talking to one of our guys and we do a ton of like you know we're doing a ton of volunteer cleanups we do all the time. quite hard. We so all of us are you know keep a close eye on the stuff and um obviously picking it up helps tremendously but it takes a lot of resources much different in the county because the county is still always bigger city it's more concentrated um but one of our guys who does a ton of work cleaned up in the city does a ton of work cleaned up in the county too he says with a lot of these tire places for example they just the way the recycling rates are structured and way the compensation structured a lot of the business have an incentive to you they they get their fee and then they run out somewhere find a spot in middle of night them there instead of taking them to landfill where they got to pay a couple bucks for them. So there's just I mean that's more state law

nature is great is it? Yeah. No and I think but I think that if you had this this kind of established fee as part of your rate structure then number one it's not only our residents paying any any any trash that we come in pay pays for it. allows you an opportunity to maybe the incentive is Matt and I'm not saying this what we're going to do but is is that now instead of if it costs you two bucks a tire that you take to the land I have no idea what the cost is but you can you know we collect this fee it's cheaper for us to now only char subsidize it and only charge them a dollar per tire or not charge them to bring tires versus are we going to go pick up those tires all over God's green earth I

there's got to be a way to be I got policy, but how do you it's a financial if it's a financial disincentive to do the right thing to be a problem. Well, and and to uh Scott's point and this is no there most of the trash that's going in the county comes from the jurisdictions. It is always outside the jurisdictions line. Like I live in Outwater. You go down Avenue 2, you'll see washing machine, dryer, you'll see a refrigerator automatically on Avenue 2. No. And I don't want to go as far as say it comes from all the the the municipalities, right? But it I could I could say that just by nature of volume, there's more people that live inside of city limits than live in the unincorporators. Yes. Majority of that's coming from there. Yeah. And

I I think that's something that as when we get to the point where we're talking about rates, we can come to the board, ask for direction as long as the board indicates Yes. I mean there are similar concepts in tips for household hazardous waste operations or funding other recycling solid waste recycling related activities is it's just yeah if the board says make that a component of your fee schedule we can build that into the the gate rate easily.

Bob's a math wiz uh spreadsheet guy. So if we can build like a model like okay this is the current rates what the you know what the rate should be and then if we add that tip fee whatever it's going to be for illegal dumping whatever is 10% 1% whatever it is going to be kind of and then we can have options for the board like what do you what rate what way do you want to go I think when we get to talking about rates you know we'll look at what components add up into that fee structure you have your operations costs your capital costs equipment replacement you know all the different factors, right?$140 the $140 we pay the state for every ton like those are all components of the overall

property tax where the dollar go right the breakdown and so I know that was probably not part of today's discussion but I think that you're going to hear that again and and honestly I think we we appreciate hearing that kind of thing because we've talked about that internally and said yeah if we could get the board to buy off and that's kind of where we're at with the beginning of the illegal dumping where we said, "Yeah, we've committed $200,000." Yeah. To to just cover it. And you accept that the jurisdictions are actually funding that. Yeah. That's as part of their fee. Out of waste. Somebody's fun to get somehow someway. I just know that like we have to what we're doing is not working.

I mean, I know that like we just spent I don't know. We just spent like probably $4500,000 on a raffle truck, right? And and that's just a simply a way to now instead of having to have two people go out there and guys going out on injuries because they're having to load this stuff into dump trucks or whatever. Now you got this grapple truck that one guy goes out there and and so that's probably going to do it's going to increase our tonnage going because we're going to be more efficient at it.

Right. And I I'll tell you one thing is Marissa made a flyer. Uh basically you saw at your board of supervisors meeting. We we're going to start incorporating that into all the jurisdictions and then we're going to build we're going to create a a billboard that rotates throughout the whole county but is acceptable at no additional cost to residents to take it to the landfill and have it rotate all around the county. So that'll help I mean people see oh I could take you know I guess the tire is not free but a mattress I don't I don't get charged. I could take a mattress to that bill and I could take this uh microwave as well at the same time. Always going to be the bad actors.

All right. Well, if there is nothing further any other further comments, mayor. Yes, sir. Turn the meeting at 3 3:35.