Definitely not to... They're still here down at Harvard. It's so free doing their website, so I don't know where, but we're in that room right now. Yeah, I will. It's east of Pine Street. Yeah. So we go up to the end of Bain. That's right. Well, it is now six o'clock. We do have a quorum present, probably just in this room without anybody else on Zoom. But including the folks on Zoom, we definitely have a quorum present. So I would like to call to order this regularly scheduled meeting of the Chittenden Solid Waste District Board of Commissioners. Today is Wednesday, September 27th, 2023. The agenda was distributed via email to all commissioners and interested parties. First item on the agenda is the agenda itself. Are there any requests for changes or additions to the agenda? I'm hearing none in this room. I'm seeing none on Zoom. The agenda will be followed as presented in the meeting packet. Second item on the agenda is the public comment period. Are there any members of the public who wish to address the board of commissioners? I can say there are none present in the meeting room. And I see none via Zoom and I'm not aware of anybody on the telephone. Therefore, we will close the public comment period. Move on to item number three, which is the consent agenda. I'm listening to the minutes of the August 16th, 2023 board meeting, program update memos, the executive director update, and the finance report, including the Lawrence cash investment and reserve balances. Any requests to remove an item from the consent agenda for further discussion? Could we check the financial? Yes. Yeah. Sorry. Losing my mind. Just to think there's a correction and I have a question. Okay. So that's item 3.4 of finance. Yes. Yeah. Correct. The second page of that. Very good. We'll pick that up in a minute. We'll remove that from the consent agenda. Any other requests? I'm hearing none. Therefore, the consent agenda with the exception of item 3.4 is accepted as presented. We'll move on to item 3.4, which is the finance reports. Lawrence cash investments reserve balances. Liz, can you? Yeah. So, so looking at the, the second page of that, the breakdown of community cleanup reserve, I just think it's supposed to say August 30th, 2023 and not 2022. So just, I think that's what it is. And then my, my question is having to do a little bit more broadly about when the town has. A project that they're planning to use those funds for what is the process. And then, when they do that, they actually need some remembrance on that. Because I think Cold Shester has something and I didn't know who I'm supposed to direct them to, et cetera. And others may have that same question. So that's all. Thanks. Thanks. Sarah, can you address those questions? Sure. And yes, you're right. That should be 2023. We'll make that correction. Thank you for catching that Liz and so the process has actually request comes into the commissioner from the community. You can also generate the solicitation for the project yourself so it doesn't have to just be from some of the community. You can go in and talk to groups and say, hey, we have these funds available. So an idea would come in to you and then there are some guidelines for use of the funds but they're fairly broad. The board several years ago did kind of expand those parameters so they're just so we can get more funds out into the community. So your first stop for kind of verification really is to talk to Nola, the director of finance and she can just verify that this would be something that is eligible for community cleanup funds. So once she's verified that with you, if you have any questions, you can also kind of touch base with folks in our people who use to run it with the outreach team and coordinator. So Jen, I don't know if you wanted to offer anybody up on your team as like a second set of eyes on that but generally it's been sent over to the finance team. So then what would happen is it's a reimbursement fund. So the money is not fronted to the community for the project. It is based on a reimbursement. So once the commissioner has approved the project, the project then happens and then receipts after the project has been completed are submitted to you, the commissioner and then you can submit that completed as a form on the website or oh Jen, is there going to continue to be a form on the new website when that is revised? Okay, we're in the middle of revising our website. So there's a form on the website that you can fill out and attach the forms and then it would be a check would be cut for the amount that is being requested up to the dollar amount that you have in your fund and that's kind of the process. I am not remembering if Nola also is asking for kind of photographs or write up or anything that the project has happened. I think the receipts are sufficient but she can be your quick guide for any of those kind of nitty gritty questions but that form on the website hopefully is helpful enough that if not definitely reach out to Nola. Okay, thank you. Can your hand us up on this issue? On this issue and and to back up a little bit just on this issue I'd add to what Sarah was just saying. The weird thing about it is that you approve it as the commissioner but the town has to pay for the work and then get reimbursed so the CSWD won't reimburse you they can only reimburse the town so you just have to tell someone in your town to trust the system and cut a check out of some fund where there's extra funds because they won't have budgeted for this problem so they have to use general funds to give you to pay the receipt and then you then you submit it to CSWD but I didn't have to I went through this I didn't have to do any pictures or anything I just did fill out the form sent it in and everyone said that was fine and then I convinced my town manager that it wasn't really a budget issue because they'd be reimbursed and so it all seemed to work out fine. Just going back one second and I don't know if I sorry I came in a moment late so I missed the consent agenda thing did anyone bring this up I had noticed on page 15 there was a little calendar as part of the executive director update and it mentioned October 19th for the executive board which seems to be a Thursday and I wondered if that was a mistake should be Monday the 16th of October you are correct that shall also be correct to do the 16th thank you okay that's it thank you very much for pointing that out Ken uh Henry your hand again speaking I just wanted to say that you don't have to have the town just oh hello yeah go ahead go ahead Henry okay the town doesn't simply have to take this on trust because these requests are filled in and approved ahead of time okay so the way you said it is like well you just have to take it on faith well not not really these are approved ahead ahead of the project or if you I mean if you ask for approval ahead of the project we went through this recently with a couple things and it went very well a town knew that CSWD is standing up for it and we filled out the paperwork and and all was good so yeah thank you a nice process thanks for the clarification Henry any other discussion or questions on the issue of the finance report it looks like to be the community cleanup fund in particular I'm hearing none I'm seeing none since this is just informational part of the report the corrections have been noted we don't need to take any further action on this consent agenda item and I believe we're now ready to move on to item number four which is the environmental depot presentation just a little bit of background we do have a lot of new commissioners have come on board in the last year or two certainly the district has its hand in a lot of different aspects of waste management and it's been some questions have come up specifically about the environmental depot but also about other aspects of CSWD's operation and we thought it would be good on a periodic basis that board meetings to take a look at some of these in some level of detail and so first up tonight is the environmental depot I'll turn it over I guess either to Sarah or Jen to walk us through this for the next 15 minutes or so actually I'm going to kick it over to Josh S.D. so Josh is our director of compliance and safety and he oversees the environmental depot so that's time to put together a brief presentation and then if you have any questions please do feel free to ask Josh and I do want to thank the commissioners who did take a significant amount of time out of your day a few weeks ago to come and tour our facilities the depot was one of the facilities that we we toured as a group so thank you all who were able to make it and we will be offering another board tour I think in the spring for those who weren't able to attend so kick that over to Josh thanks Sarah thanks Paul yeah I just I just put I had a couple pictures that I'll that I'll put up on the on the screen and then share one of our fiscal fiscal year reports so that you can see sort of the work that we do on that side as well so just find find those pictures everybody can see that is that big enough on the screen in the in the room yeah okay thank you so if you haven't been here this is the front side of our environmental depot in South Burlington right behind the airport we take we take hazardous waste at this facility we take hazardous waste from both homeowners and from small businesses and so this is sort of the approach as you as you drive up to the building as you can see this is actually new signage as of this year so it's bright and shiny compared to the building but I do have plans to hopefully freshen up the building in the in the near future so and then if you see that that blue silo on the right hand side that's a that's a remnant from when it was a biosolids processing facility back in the day so this this building in true CSWD fashion has been reused as a hazardous waste facility back from when it was biosolids processing let's see this is a car park this is for residential drop-off only so this is sort of the path you take when you're bringing your household hazardous waste inside again another shot there this is this is sort of the receiving area for HHW as you can see there's a number of containers that are that are set out for immediate collection of the material including some paint containers here oil and antifreeze and then back here there's drums for a lot of our EPR programs so between aerosols and pesticides and latex paint and oil based paint a lot of those materials we receive a lot a large volume of and so they go right into containers as our highly trained staff sort them out so in case you don't remember a couple years ago back at the start of the pandemic we instituted a appointment only system for households to drop off we are we have always been appointment only by businesses but we we changed to an appointment model for for our household as well and basically what that does is it allows us to stay on top of the material coming in our doors we we see a lot of material as I'll as I'll point out in a minute and oftentimes in the past when we had 15 or 20 cars in line it became a real challenge to stay on top of the material coming in our doors so the appointment system really allows us to meter that material through the facility um and process it and keep it keep our facility both compliant and safe as we're bringing material in so that's just a quick shot of the HHW receiving area this is the uh this is the the small business receiving area it's on the front of the building you can see our our forklift there um it's kind of hard to make out but right here is a state certified scale and we have that because we do weigh everything coming in from businesses um for a couple reasons one is so that we can charge them appropriately the appropriate amount based on the the chemical type that's coming in the door and also it allows the businesses that we serve to track their how much hazardous waste they're generating and um they have to be a certain category to bring us waste so that sort of helps them out make that classification throughout the year and then this is our local color side of the building so this was a new project as of a couple years ago uh the the space that you're looking into that that concrete floor actually used to drop into a basement about 10 feet below grade so a couple years ago we did get an infrastructure from the state of Vermont and we took the money and we filled in our basement and brought that level up to grade and basically created half of a building worth of usable space so we used to have a warehouse that we rented uh down the road and we were able to move that process back under the same roof as the environmental depot so now when we bring the paint in from households and businesses instead of driving them down the road we just wheel them across to this side of the building so in this side of the building they will open up every paint can paint can we receive you can see in these gay lords here those are all the one gallon containers of paint that we receive and then they process them into 55 gallon drums and they either get turned into local color paint which you can see in these buckets here or they get turned into a recycled paint product um that gets marketed elsewhere and uh those those drums of paint are are more or less colors that we can't market locally so we still make a really high quality paint product it just gets marketed elsewhere so that's the local color side of the facility and then this is just looking back out uh towards where the entrance is these are some outside uh long-term storage containers for hazardous waste you can see of course the rover truck in the picture and then sort of stack of empty drums over here so we do get picked up from our hazardous waste hauler either every week or every two weeks but we do need this extra outside storage area because we do generate that much hazardous waste that we can't keep it in the building so that's sort of the the outside storage area and then um just wanted to briefly share uh we do generate an annual report every year so just wanted to share that as well uh most most people have never seen this before so it's kind of a peek behind the curtain but um we do have to report on a quarterly basis all of the material that flows through our facility to the state as part of our uh state solid waste certification so um we know the total weight of all material going out as far as the shipments with our waste hauler and then as I mentioned before we do weigh all of the uh house the hazardous waste coming in from businesses and so we're able to figure out the total amount of weight the business weight that's what that CEG stands for it stands for conditionally exempt generator and then we're able to deduct one from the other and come up with the total pounds of HHW that we receive so for example the FY23 the total waste that moved through our facility was 590,000 pounds and that was at a cost of roughly $234,000 so um it's it's not an inexpensive operation um it's a it's an expensive material to get rid of um it's expensive depending on the chemistry of the material that comes through and so it's kind of trying to hit a moving target as we're as we're budgeting because we don't sort of know what the flavor of the day is going to be as far as what what's going to be coming into us um so uh that's that's just kind of a peek at the material flowing through and the cost associated um and then also we do just keep track of participation so this was fiscal year participation broken down by town um and then we do have some history as well so we have a look back at all the years that we've been operating going back to fiscal year of 91 um you can see a pretty significant drop off in fiscal year 20 that was uh pandemic related um it also coincided with as I mentioned the implementation of the appointment system um but really you know we've seen um pretty steady total waste collected our our best year by far was fiscal year of 19 uh sorry 18 when we collected 811,000 pounds of waste but we've pretty steadily ticked up year over year um and uh we we serve a lot of people and we we take a lot of hazardous waste out of the waste stream um we're going to get a another good look at um the state of months doing a waste sort uh this year and that that really helps us guide um our thinking as to how well we're doing um because we can get a good look at the material coming through the transfer stations and see if um if we're if we're missing a certain a certain material if we're if we're missing a certain community um you know just anecdotally from the the low checks that um Janine and I have done we we don't see a whole lot of hazardous waste in the waste stream which is great um but that that does give us a really nice snapshot at uh whether or not we're seeing any hazardous waste in the MSW waste stream going through the transfer station so um we're looking forward to getting that data when when they are done with um their waste sort so uh as as people know that that took the tour with me I could talk about hazardous waste forever I did my best to uh keep it as brief as possible but um happy to answer any questions if if anybody has any I'm Josh I'm going to ask the first question can you just briefly tell us what happens to the material after it's handed over to our hauler just brief I imagine it goes in many different directions but maybe you just give us a sense of is this material being responsibly disposed of ultimately yeah so um we do have a contract with uh US Ecology also they're now owned by Republic so they they kind of merged um and they have a they have a hazardous waste license facility in Williston so it goes to that facility it gets offloaded off their truck and then basically um gets it'll get reloaded onto tractor trailers for end destinations um we have everything we ship to US Ecology goes on a hazardous waste manifest um and that hazardous waste manifest is tracked in in a bunch of different ways um but there is a return manifest copy system so every manifest that leaves our facility we have to see our return copy come back which is signed by the end destination so that basically the facility in Williston um if we don't receive that copy within 45 days there's a process by which we have to record that we're missing that um and then at any point we can reach out to US Ecology and we can tell them what drum we want and disposal information on and they will they will tell us in particular where a particular drum went to um it gets a little bit in the hazardous waste weeds when we talk about shipping documents um but just briefly uh each each drum has hazardous waste codes attached to them um and and those hazardous waste codes are the the disposal technology is dictated by uh federal statute so essentially they have to go to licensed and disposal markets that that are allowed to treat a particular waste in a particular with a particular technology so it definitely gets a little complicated but there are mechanisms by which we we do verify that the waste has reached uh an ultimate disposition in in the right manner thanks alan you'd raise your hand yeah two questions the first is I guess it isn't a question I didn't know that we had stopped renting the facility down in barrage park so that's good news um the second is COVID deaths expired COVID tests are they hazardous household hazardous waste or are they just trash uh I I can get back to you but I don't know that there would be a hazardous component to them I I could verify that but I just in knowing what I know about them I I don't think there's a hazardous component to them I I would I would put mine right in the trash yeah with a new uh distribution we didn't update and we got a brutal home at our house yeah yeah everybody's gonna have a brutal album but for sure I think I saw on the CDC website they can be disposed of trash uh other questions for josh I do have one more question and that's can you just talk very briefly about that safety protocols a little concerned about you know these materials that come in and what you do to make sure that our staff is adequately protected and sure um the I guess the first step is um they're very highly trained and and we mentioned this on our tour but um it's it's very hard to do any kind of classroom training for this type of work it it is primarily on the job training um and while that doesn't sound safe there is a there is a very kind of slow ramp up uh process to get to a point where we are allowing our folks to be kind of full-fledged waste operators where they're where they're trusted to work solely um in the receiving area by themselves and and others can be elsewhere in the facility um we also PPE is as you might imagine a fairly significant part of our decision-making process down there we do have a personal protective equipment selection chart so based on the task that they're doing um they have they have required PPE that they have to wear um that includes eyeglasses at all times steel toe boots at all times and some type of hand protection at all times non-negotiable um it goes up from there as they're doing other tasks such as uh bulking waste they will have a Tyvek suit on or at the very minimum a Tyvek apron um and that will depend on what type of material they're they're bulking um we also have a um a respiratory protection plan uh so when they are doing those bulking operations they're wearing a full full face um respirator with cartridges um breathing cartridges that are selected based on the material type that they are that they are bulking so primarily they're using organic vapor cartridges when they're bulking flammable materials um we also have mercury vapor cartridges if they're doing any type of cleanup of broken fluorescent bulbs uh we also have p100 cartridges which are basically really good cartridges for any kind of dusty environment so we do have those options available to us um and then lastly I'll say uh we have a pretty close relationship with uh with the state uh OSHA program they have a a volunteer uh program so we will we will invite Project WorkSafe into our facility on a pretty routine basis and they will do a essentially a full OSHA audit of our operation um and make recommendations on how to improve that that process the the caveat to bringing them in is that you're agreeing to make any of the changes that they recommend um but we've always needless to say wanted to be you know in compliance and keeping our our staff as healthy as possible so we've always agreed to that um and then also in in uh in addition to their audits they're also willing to do air monitoring for us so on it on a number of different occasions they've come in instead of air monitoring while we've done different operations primary the primarily the bulking operation when we're actually consolidating chemicals into drums um and that the results of those testing actually dictate what level of protection we have to to provide our staff when they're doing those bulking operations so um I hope that answers your question again there's more to you know we do have a safety shower and eyewash we have um we have agreements set up with um our local uh occupational health outlets in case we do need to see someone we do um we do annual medical tests and and blood tests to make sure that um people aren't being exposed especially to metals um and then of course we have we have plans in place um in the event we do have an emergency they're well versed and trained annually on on what to do in the event of of an emergencies of you know such as you know fire explosion um if we receive an explosive material we have a plan to to deal with that so um the list kind of goes on and on that's that's great over here Josh thank you Margie has her hand up and then Paul Stabler would like to make a comment yeah my um my question uh occurred to me as I was looking at the outside um picture Josh you know of the you had the outside areas uh and some drums sitting around what about security I mean do you have against um uh you know intrusions by outsiders possible vandalism um yeah we do um yeah we do have our security system which is uh automatically dialed out to police and we we we test that inadvertently a couple times a year when it when it accidentally goes off so we we know it's functional um you know we are really tucked back behind um the wastewater treatment plant and and the old south brolin's and landfill so we're in a pretty good location as far as not being accessible um and then all of our outside buildings are are secured and there's there's a gate at the top of the fence so all of those things kind of combined um are our security and I will say that the building is um we have a sprinkler system in the building so if there were to be some type of material in the off hours we we should have um a good amount of protection um depending on the material of course um and then our outdoor containers are actually also um they have their own ancill fire protection system in those outdoor storage locations as well and those are also tied into the the alarm system so we have a pretty good level of protection there thanks oh I just wanted to say uh I should have paid attention to this earlier but I've blown away by how much material you divert and I just want to say thank you for having such a positive impact on our environment uh you know this stuff would go in the trash or in worse in the waterways so uh anyway so that's just wonderful thank you I um I inherited I took over the program from Jen I took over the the safety program from Jen and uh needless to say she made my job really easy taking over those those programs um but and we also have Gary Winnie who has been recognized nationally for um his leadership in the HHW world so we are uh incredibly lucky um in our staff um Donnie Carabonis has been with us for 17 years and um and we also have a couple really great new hires and then uh our paint our paint producer Robert Holman he's been with us since 2007 um and so the longevity that we have in the program makes my job really easy so I just would be remiss if I didn't mention them as well thank you thank you for this overview I hope it's been educational and informative for the both veteran and for newer commissioners to see this aspect of our operation on responsibilities there are no other questions or comments I think we're ready to move on then to item number five which is a landfill discussion just to kind of frame this I know I've been aware of several commissioners have asked questions of concern uh looking down the the road uh about the status of um landfill in the state of Vermont um most recently Alan raised the question and I guess I could turn it over to you Alan if you wanted to phrase your concern and then I'll probably turn it back over to Sarah to help frame this and further the discussion and information yeah I mean I just know that the Coventry is getting filled up pretty quickly and uh curious what the state solution is for when that has to close and uh I just thought it's something that the board ought to have a get a handle on and maybe stay on top of a little bit more frequently than what we've been discussing because it's going to come on as quick and it's a long time process it's responsible to ask the question so Sarah do you want to pick it up from here me too and I will do my best to let's see here if I can get my screen sharing properly uh let's see okay I think that should be working so I thought um I would also provide a little bit of some background for our newer commissioners but also for some commissioners who may have been with us for a while but not since we have been more actively involved in in this issue locally so one of the things that um you know again as as Alan mentioned we we are at a point in our landfilling history here in Vermont where we really do need to start thinking about what's next and there's some very good reasons for that and we'll kind of get into the conversation so this is um as Paul and Alan said kind of the it's really to just kick some of the conversation off to generate some questions now we can bring back to our folks at the state at A&R and and just make sure that we are being kept up to date as much as we want to be so as we mentioned some of the questions for conversation for discussion is is that key question how much life was left at the landfill in Coventry. Alan had also asked about you know well how how much material is currently going out of state for disposal and I threw in a question what is CSWD's role and what is our responsibility and then finally Alan's question again back to you know what what are the plans that does the state have any plans and what are they doing when the landfill does eventually close. So I thought I would first start with ah go back don't want to do that one yes just fine here we go with what we in Jenin County are sending to the landfill and this was as of 2022 so this is in our diversion report from from that time and it's kind of a very simplified version of of the buckets that have been sent to the landfill in tons so and this this is just what was landfill so it's not counting anything that has been diverted so it's not the recycling and the morphine it's not the the scrap set before so you can see that of the total tons that Jenin County residents and businesses landfill in 2022 about you know around 60,000 tons 61,000 tons was is what we would consider trash it has no other place to go no no other destination potentially for that to be handled or managed in a different way of that you can see the big opportunity remains organics and so when we're talking you know defining organics it's not just those scraps but it's it's you know leave and yard debris it's many ways that kind of a thing but it's it's all of those you know soil paper things like that anything that could be diverted that could possibly be composted is or you know otherwise divert divertible that is organic so that remains the largest stream of opportunity for our businesses and residents to keep more material out of the landfill there's still a good section a good amount of material of blue bin recycling that is being landfill for whatever reason so we want to be able to be targeting that certainly with the new mirth we'll be able to handle much more of that we could absolutely in the new mirth would be able to handle all 10,000 of those tons which is very exciting so you know this is just to give you a bit of a sense of how much what Jenin County's effect is on the landfill and because we are the most populous county you know certainly by by large we are the the largest single entity contributor to the landfill but we're also you know the best diverter of material from the landfill so again where are the landfills in Vermont so the only true active landfill is the sometimes called the Coventry landfill sometimes called Pasello landfill its technical name is New England Waste Services of Vermont that is a DBA its owned by Kasella the state does a landfill report on a regular basis the last one they presented to the legislature was even in 2021 or 2022 but fairly recently and they every year they will identify when they do this report they'll identify quote potential sites and the three potential sites that they repeatedly refer to in their reports are these three one in Sheldon one in Heartland and the one in Williston and some of our newer members may be surprised to know that there is a potential quote site in Williston we'll get to that so this is if we haven't been up to the landfill oh goodness it's very sensitive here um this is the overview this is a Google Earth look at the Coventry landfill Kasella landfill um and it's about 141 miles round trip from Williston they the the landfill is permitted to bury 600 000 tons of trash a year in one of the last year of the year before they buried just over 550 000 tons not all of that is municipal solid waste a good portion of that is construction demolition debris it's you know other materials uh that are not kind of your common household trash of the material of that was buried that makes up common household trash is about 350 to 375 000 tons um so Kasella as a private entity they are allowed to bring in waste from out of state and they do they are required to uh quote preserve or reserve space for Vermont waste so they can't completely fill it with out of state waste they have to preserve capacity for Vermonters and Vermont generated waste they do have a methane capturing facility and methane generating plants with the generate the landfill generates methane the plant generates electricity powers about 8000 homes they also have in the northern top part of the screen in the middle that is a solar farm so they are generating solar electricity from solar as well the landfill site it's currently approximately 129 acres it is fairly constrained as far as how much further they would be able to um to expand so you can see the larger body of water in the upper part of the screen that is um the southern most part of Lake Mefromegog so it's uh it's called south south bay or something um that then does uh flow into city of Newport and then on the other side is Lake Mefromegog so the landfill is constrained also by wetlands there is a pretty significant river that runs kind of circles around the landfill you can see the airport to the southern parts as well so they cannot expand southerly they can't expand towards towards the lake there's not a lot of room left for them to grow if they wanted to they have on paper um some additional areas that they could expand into and and a an active area is called a cell so they have you know again um potential on the drawing board cells but whether or not they could be permitted is definitely a question if there was a lot of concern over this last cell this current one which was designed to accommodate approximately 22 years of loading or disposal at the current loading rate um it's now down a couple of years um so there's anywhere between 18 and 20 years left on the current uh the current loading cell and there was significant local opposition from a group it was actually international so we had there was representation from Quebec and from the local area and Coventry and uh the main concern is with the leachate that there's concern that it was not being managed as as soundly as um the the parties would have wanted or expected uh lake mephromagog is a source of drinking water for folks in Quebec and so there's a good amount of concern about PFOS and so the forever chemicals that are are found in leachate um then being you know not being able to not having yet been treated adequately enough to have the water discharged into the lake so Cassella as a condition of their permit has been required to conduct studies and do they're supposed to be doing some some pilots and some testing on ways to mitigate the PFOS in their leachate to destroy it if possible uh so they that was a condition of their permit so they're actively working on some of those solutions um I do not have an update as to for where they are on that but um that could be a question that we ask A&R and for folks that haven't oh goodness gracious folks haven't been to a landfill this is just a um and this is a photo that was taken uh actually by Michelle Morris in 2014 that shows a little bit of um kind of a cross section if you will of a inactive cell a working cell of the landfill so you can see over uh where it says person I'm kind of a scale of what open cell looks like um and to the left of the person that gray area that is a liner and um right in front of them is water you can see water collecting in the liner um and so every modern landfill is called a sanitary landfill and it needs to be double lined so it's I used to describe it as a lasagna you would never want to eat so there are layers um that make up a modern landfill of um compacted soil and stone and clay plastic membrane and then you do it again a geomembrane um there's pipes that go into capture leachate, there are pipes that go into capture methane it's a a true engineering marvel and it has to be right so it's it's all designed to contain the material that it collects and you can see how far down they need to to go to get to that base of a landfill before they can ever start even um adding any trash they have to have that that those layers involved in the landfill and then what it looks like when your moving material is um good lord so sorry I they use one of um this is just an example of one of the the machines that is there and and you can see we can see the wheels have kind of knobs on them and they're designed to compact and to break apart trash into smaller pieces and that screen on the front essentially is is pushing the material and and that screen is designed to be able to move it in and kind of mirror the material out and flatten it out just above the the piece of equipment you can see kind of behind you looks like screens and those are screens those are litter screens to try and they will move those around the site depending on where they're loading to try to catch any wind blow litter um and then every day at the end of the day um anything that has been put in place for a landfill disposal is then covered and that is a requirement and so they have to cover that with um they can use different materials for daily cover um you know they can use soils they can use um approved uh asphalt concrete brick uh there's a whole host of materials that they could use for alternate daily cover and that has to happen at the end of each day and it usually happens throughout the day as well it's not just uh at the end of the day so okay we may be surprised folks who haven't been around for a while to know that CSWD also was right from the beginning of our um our our chartering we were looking at where uh in Chittenden County could we site a landfill and it was in just looking back for the history it was a very very long process and Paul Stabler and I you were involved um for a while in that as well and and Alan you may have been too um and it was you know many many years of community involvement um we went through a siting process that was over a decade long we you know what we're looking at here is this is an older photo so you're not going to see not sure if you can see my cursor or not if you can hopefully you can but the middle of the the photograph is where the the preferred site was was identified quote site 21 and over 60 locations were investigated throughout the course of the process and so it was this site 21 was approximately 50 54 55 acres that was identified as the preferred site and right along Redmond Road contours the back of Redmond Road um and the the red um the red line across the top that is the Cirque Highway um that is still on the maps but is not as we all know not been built um that I think was seen as a kind of critical component to the success of the landfill who's going to be built on that location um and you know for variety reasons that Paul would know that I I don't know um after we kind of got through uh the process um by which we actually took that um that property and then domain then then it kind of peed it off and I don't know why so we could open that up a conversation as to perhaps why but here's that timeline so the citizens you can see the citizens advisory committee started pretty much along the same timeline as CSWD being chartered and then the process was in in heavy mode through about 1992 who took over responsibility for managing the Williston Town landfill so they're unlined and then we briefly had a we also built a small landfill that was lined so that was our CSWD small landfill um we identified the site that site 21 and then um because that site was an active uh sand pit for Heinsberg Sand and Gravel we had identified that as the preferred location and then proceeded to initiate eminent domain um of that taking of that that parcel of that land and that took an extraordinarily long time um the settlement did occur and now Heinsberg Sand and Gravel is in the midst of their 30 year rights to what they then called Redmond Sand and that began in 2009 so they are extracting sands um on a somewhat regular basis at this point there's like they're a bit behind um their schedule so we do need to meet with Mr. Casey and just give an update from kind of how he thinks that process is going to go rather help you able to kind of ramp things up um but there wasn't much activity after 2009 as far as developing our own local landfill and there was a difference between local landfills and regional landfills and this one um in several iterations was was at one point designed to be a regional landfill and that would have been uh twice the size so we did not pursue that uh that option instead we're looking to just a local landfill um on the road so one of the questions was where uh where is Vermont Generator Ways to going so the I don't have an updated number this is from uh the DEC so from um the Department of Environmental Conservation uh Soloway's program and most of Vermont's uh waste does stay in Vermont uh a some amount goes to New York and some amount goes to New Hampshire generally the amount that is moving um to those states not much goes to to Massachusetts anymore I used to go to Massachusetts you can see there but it's been a while since that happened um is from the southern part of the state so Wyndham Windsor uh Bennington counties um and some on the opposite side of um 91 like going to New Hampshire but the vast majority of the waste is staying within the lot and I thought this was interesting too this is destination in general northeast generator waste and I wanted to show this because you can see from New York and New Jersey they are exporting outside of the northeast and that is kind of spoiler alert that is the future of of where material is going to go Massachusetts um is no longer able to accept any waste from outside of the state they are at capacity Connecticut is struggling as well they are currently at capacity they have are heavy with waste energy facilities and those facilities um are struggling and may not be able to meet the new EPA air mission standards um Rhode Island is not allowed to accept waste from out of state into their landfill and they are reaching capacity within about 10 to 15 years so they will then become an exporter of waste as well New Hampshire is having um deep discussions about how much waste they want to continue to allow in uh Maine has a bit more flexibility more um potential capability to accept but is also feeling the strain and the struggle so in the very near term and this again was 2017 in the very near term this is going to be an issue not just for Vermont but for all of the northeast where is that material going to go so right now the top destinations for northeast waste um that is not remaining within the states are Pennsylvania Ohio and West Virginia um we Kasella is sending some of excuse me some of their um their waste even further south to the to the Carolinas their um their glass for example is going there not as waste but as as call it but that is how far away that they've got to go and then potential modes of transportation transfer truck and rail and then what are some of our options excuse me so thank you Sarah for that overview it's I'll just uh Paul I'll just interject a couple of things one of the reason the site 21 was selected is that uh is that uh my understanding is that the geology was good and that there's glacial till underlying the site which is impervious to you know groundwater so that was a selection criteria um and the other thing I'll um mention is that you know the district did own and operate the construct on an operator landfill at the end of breadman road for what a year and a half or two something like that uh but it's at the face three until I believe it's called so I mean it's closed since and I'll of course but we did for a short while um you know it was interesting because once the federal government closed all the online landfills I think ratty was the first one that that happened it was ratty landfill on ratty road in Nicole Chester which was lasted a couple of years and we scrambled to to build one there in Williston that lasted a little while and then you know more town so it's there's a long history of landfills that have come and go so anyway I'll answer questions from commissioners yeah um hi I was um really struck by the first graph Sarah where like half the stuff shouldn't be going to the landfill and it seems to me that you know it's like reduce should be the first thing we try right not sending it there and you know uh and just today walking the dog I'm looking at people's trash containers and I see recyclables sitting at the top of their trash containers it would just be great if we could somehow get better public concern about what people are doing with their trash I don't know you know I obviously this is the ideal but it's just shocking to look at that at that graph yeah no and I agree there's um and that's really what what was so interesting to me was was the the chunk that are organics right you know that is the the really large immediate opportunity and you know how you know what more can we do what more does the district want to be responsible for doing because that's you know that's also a question for for the board is just to you know think about policy and think about you know investment and and we've we've done more than any other solid waste district as far as you know both from a recycling standpoint and from a you know composting a food scrap standpoint thanks in large part to the huge investments that that over the years the boards have approved and there's always going to be more right and so it is a great opportunity to say okay you know we're gonna handle on what are some of the barriers that continue to exist um is there a role again for CSWD as an entity are there roles that we need to help trickle down to the local communities that they could that they could do at a more local level um this is this is all part of you know the conversation to say okay here's where we are we we kind of do now have a bit of a ticking clock um and even though it feels like it's a very very far away to kind of give you a an example of um how long these things take take to bring up you know online it can take 15 years to site and and permit and begin operating a landfill it's a very very long lead time and they're very expensive to build and maintain and operate um and you know so we kind of have to be talking about these options now and Jen and I had conversations with folks at the state and and have been saying this for a few years we really need to engage we need to engage more and I know that they are but we really want to make sure that it it's being a bit more public and that more of the public are talking about and thinking about and your hand is up Sarah do you have any sense about um whether landfills are one you know profitable um you know I you said it was expensive to build but how long do they take to become profitable and and can the state does the state have the expertise to create a new landfill or do they would they have to rely completely on Kasella and why isn't Kasella making one in the middle of the state so they if it's profitable such that they would all the trash would go there and they'd make more money etc etc yeah so we the state has informally said that they are not interested in in operating a landfill and building one or operating one and I understand it's it's highly technical and it's not their other main you know line of business right they're regulators so they don't really have much interest in it they prefer to have that be a decision made by the private sector or the municipal sector and and they just want to be the kind of the overseas making sure that it's done properly correctly landfills can be very can be very profitable they come with a huge degree of cost just again from the infrastructure they're they're very very costly there's a huge amount of liability involved and the main I think really the big barrier frankly is the not in my backyard uh scenario right no one no one wants to live near a landfill and as someone who used to live you know about eight nine miles away on some days I wasn't far enough you know so I do get it and why Kasella isn't building one in the southern part of the state I think the availability of of land is key right so much of Vermont is protected and we like it that way and you know it's there's not great transportation infrastructure you know the way to get to the commentary landfill is is you can kind of get there from 91 but really you have to take 15 it's it is not easy to get up there you know and where it is it's so close to the Canadian border but you're right ideally there would be more again regional uh facilities whether they're landfills or their waste energy facilities or digesters or what have you that they would be you know dotted across the state and certainly why we were looking at it is you know again we saw it as our one of our responsibilities um and you know Chippin County is is where a big bulk of population is right so um there's a there's a lot of factors involved and it's why we spent many many many years I was amazed by the files as I was going through them myself and so much information but could it be done of course um state doesn't want to do it there's a reason that Kasella may now want to open one we don't know uh would they have been challenged um in their expansion efforts in other states um in Massachusetts they were the community did not allow them to expand their uh their southbridge landfill there's some pressure in Maine um it's not easy Dan you had a question or comment uh more of a comment um when site 21 was on the table I was really all in favor of that not that I'm a huge fan of landfills uh because I agree that the best thing that we can do with landfills is to try to keep things out of them but I thought having something local that we as a class organization could have some control over we would do a good job of educating people and we would spread out the life of the landfill um unfortunately um public uh uh input was negative and I thought it was more hysterical by nature than anything and then the media piled on and then you know nothing was able to happen I thought the land uh landfill design through my layman's eyes was exceptional and whatever message we tried to uh convey to the public that this is not your grandfather's landfill you know went on deaf ears but I think of that yet every time on highway 15 and I see one of those movable poor trucks rumbled on the road and I think I see one every day that I'm on 15 coming in from under hell um at least one depends on the time of day is so wasteful and I think that we lose control you know when when those big roll-offs are dumped into those trucks if we had more of an eyesight and more of an investment um I think it would be better and we could do a better job but that's just my thoughts thanks Dan well yeah I'm sorry I just thought I also had a couple of things one is um and now I agree with Dan completely there um I think when we had this sized about 20 years ago it was going to be about 170 million dollars to construct a landfill in Williston on site 21 I'm sure it's much more than that now given 20 years it's gone by but it gives you a sense of perspective of how very expensive it will be I also would like to point out that you know I mean wouldn't it be lovely if we could just reduce the volume going in but there was a statistic I heard on the radio the other day something like our consumer driven economy drives about 60 percent of our overall economy so you make a significant reduction in consumer goods you're going to seriously impact our economy not saying that that can't be solved but just saying that is something that really you know 40 years ago wasn't that much trash going in place in the house just blown up uh and then the last thing Sarah is going to suggest maybe in the next few years we could schedule a tour of Coventry I know we did one I don't know how long ago it was but it was a great tour it was very interesting very worthwhile doing yeah we might want to consider doing that at some point yeah it's a great idea I know that um Cassella every now and then it used to be either annual or every other year they would have an open house and public tours and I went um when I first arrived it was actually the big first field trip that I did first field trip and it is fascinating even for someone who you know spent a decade having a very large landfill right outside Modore it was really really eye opening and um and it's impressive to see how it's managed and you know and what what they have to do to make it so that it is functioning well and and is um and doing the job it needs to do and and Paul you know you're right you know what you mean you're setting the the cost of the landfill it's that's not all you know the upfront cost that's over the life because it is a it's in a constant state of construction it's always being built and and um it is very expensive and yet you know some of what we were factoring in was you know the greenhouse gas emissions and you know the the cost uh to everyone involved for transporting material up their diesel truck wear and tear on the roads all of that is also factored in to the community's cost of disposal but certainly at this point it is more than more than what we have been estimating 20 years ago. Margie your hand us up and then Alan. Yeah um so I'm I'm wondering you know we didn't you didn't spend a lot of time on alternatives Sarah and I'm wondering are any of those alternatives uh more profitable is there any way that some of those alternatives become attractive to private entities to pursue? That's a great question and um honestly is not one that we staff have dedicated a lot of energy to but it is something that I do want to turn our attention to in the near future just so that we're we're becoming more professionally educated about kind of what the technologies are are today where they're being utilized what the costs are what the volumes are that are needed to make sure that they are if not profitable or are supporting themselves I'm sort of like it's private and you know private entity they will need to make a certain amount of profit. Generally what adds to the profit is the sale of electricity or the sale of energy so that is you know it's not the tip fee that makes makes the money it is on the energy end that's where you're seeing not just electricity being generated by you may be seeing fuel being generated other kinds of fuel sin you know synthetic fuel sin gas is generated out of some of these plants and so you know there's there's a lot to learn and admittedly it has been a very very long time since we were actively involved in this arena so my my my goal is once the the mirf the new mirf is kind of up running to turn some attention some professional attention towards these alternatives and at that point as well we will have gone through the next iteration of the the state's materials management plan with them and you know one of the things that Jen and I have have suggested is that that these kinds of questions be asked in that context of what is the state looking at how are they looking at things what have they is there anything they've completely just written off the list and and are not going to look at and if so and i'm guessing it's some of these ways to energy technologies conversion technologies should we be looking at them just again for educational purposes so that we aren't dismissing something out of hand with not having any information about it so so in the next couple of years that that is something that i i do want um my team and i to really just start to look at and just to get from a professional education perspective yes alan and rick and just just to follow up on what dan said i'm on route 15 at 20 of six in the morning and there are at least three trucks that i see coming through the junction um headed to coventry and they run all day long but we're close to coventry compared to the trucks that are running up through high gate that come from rutherland over four to 91 uh and from bennington and brattle borough um that that go there um the other is sarah that i would like to see us get some of the state staff here to get confronted by the board you know they see jan all the time and and you and you represent us well um but they need to realize that the entire county through the reps that are on the board uh have a concern with respect to this and and want to see what the state is going to you know how high they're going to jump on doing something i've always wondered about addison county uh you know we put in impermeable barriers down there you've got virgin's clay that's pretty well impermeable to start with uh and i got some large areas of inactive farms that could create a large landfill piece like you see them occur in florida and and other areas of the country okay i will extend an invitation rick and then i'd like i think um try to wrap this up unless there's other very important points to be made we still have a lot of business to do tonight rick go ahead so a question for sarah uh we obviously have a dusted interest in solve having this problem solved by somebody or something because we need to some trash someplace is there anything else that we ought to be aware of anything in the charter anything in legislation the regulations that obligate us to do something other than wait and see no there is no requirement for cswd to operate any facility so we are not expected by anyone to build any solid waste disposal facility to own operate no we have the authority to do so but not the obligation thank you uh chen you want to make a comment yeah just a comment on that i'm cswd's and on the hook but there has been um quite quite often a bill is introduced at the legislature to look at this problem it typically comes from the northeast kingdom area because they want to see vermont um keep their waste more locally um so there's been bills that have been introduced and passed there was one passed to require the state to look at what was available for landfill siding in the state and that sarah's referred to that report where our our site 21 is is indicated but there was one introduced last year to form a commission um that hasn't gotten any traction a landfill siding commission um so the there's definitely awareness i would say a and r hasn't stepped up very quickly but there are legislators that are concerned thanks i guess i'd like to wrap it up um and say you know we've done a good job of getting this issue out in front of commissioners it's something we need to be concerned about i'd go back to alan's suggestion to keep this ball rolling um we need to express our concern perhaps get some people in the room to continue the discussion i don't want to see this drop now and come back three years later you know and say well what's going on but perhaps that's a path forward to keep this in front of our minds we're doing our part responsibly to get this ball rolling and help the state out figure this problem out we'll extend the invitation so hope everybody's comfortable with that that wrap up thank you very much alan i don't know paul was very concerned about as well for bringing us forward uh let's move on then we're up to number item number six on the agenda which is an executive session two items uh the town of williston recommend the redmond rome property and then the city of burlington flint avenue property um i'd like to address town of williston first and then um flow into the city of burlington and there is potential action at the end of that executive session um concerning flint avenue the memorandum of understanding what the city of burlington expires on september 30th so there's potential that we would need to take some action tonight on that expiring mo youth um with that maybe we could have a motion then to enter into executive session sure i'll read that and before people jump off to the um other link i just wanted to say that because scott will be leaving this meeting we could stay in this this zoom link without having anyone leave because we don't have anyone on the public um if that saves some time and confusion that would that works and if someone from the public were to register i would see it that's unlikely that would hurt at this point um motion that the board of commissioners of the chitenden solid waste district go into executive session to discuss contract negotiations with the city of burlington regarding the flint avenue property and contract negotiations with the town of williston regarding the host town agreement where premature general public knowledge would clearly place the district its member municipalities and other public bodies or persons involved at a substantial disadvantage and to permit authorized staff other invited interested parties and the solid waste district attorney to be present for this session some move yes it's second turn we can thank you it's been moved and seconded that we enter into executive session all those in favor please say i i i the oppose say nay i'm sure there'll be no abstentions uh we'll now enter into executive session turning off the recording recording stopped close our doors i don't want it to let's take two minutes in case anybody needs to go to the restaurant and grab something to drink