Kern sees only pricey options for diverting organic waste
Oct. 17—There's no way around it: Kern government's next venture into the county's waste stream is going to get messy.
State law requires the county to halve the amount of organic waste it buries by Jan. 1, though there's some deadline flexibility. By 2025, to reduce methane emissions, there must be three-quarters less food, grass, paper and cardboard going to local landfills.
Now for the price tag: Kern's director of public works told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday the amount the county charges residential property owners to cover waste hauling and recycling costs will probably need to rise 71 percent to $180 per year. Costs would also go up for businesses that hire haulers.
Behind the county's cost projections are years of research and a desire by staff to balance hauling and operational costs while also keeping the local environment clean and avoiding state penalties.
Public Works Director Craig Pope told supervisors the county has looked at drastic measures for keeping costs down, such as shutting landfills and transfer stations and closing household hazardous waste facilities in favor of less convenient alternatives.
But staff concluded that not only would costs fall heavily on haulers the county contracts with, but people and possibly businesses with a lot of waste to dispose of will end up dumping it where they shouldn't.
"(If) people have to haul too far," Pope said, "they're not going to do it."
BIG PROJECTS
What's proposed instead is a series of multimillion-dollar construction projects, such as a $20 million compost facility in the Shafter-Wasco area, expansion and improvement of existing processing facilities and a new, $30 million facility for handling organic waste.
Different kinds of facilities would be needed to handle different waste streams. Residents with separate containers for trash, recycling and green waste might have their organics sent straight to compost. Separately, there's expected to be a greater emphasis on reducing food waste.
But the county foresees a big need to remove organics from unsorted residential waste streams, estimated by the state and the county to make up about 40 percent of everything households throw out.
The state has estimated counties' costs will jump between $25 million and $150 million per year. County staff say that looks about right.
No plan has been finalized locally. First staff intend to move forward with a fee increase, then ask the Board of Supervisors to approve a specific plan for handling organic waste. CalRecycle, the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, would have to sign off on any proposed solution. The county is also coordinating solutions with Kern's incorporated cities with which it already works on waste disposal and landfill diversions.
A few years ago the county issued a request for proposals asking organic-waste processors to submit their technologies for review. Nine responses came in, and from those, staff selected three to look at more closely.
THREE OPTIONS
Assistant Public Works Director Lynn Brooks said staff traveled to San Jose to check out a processing line that employs hundreds of people and runs almost nonstop removing organics that then get cooked for a month before being composted. It was the most expensive of the three, with an estimated price tag of about $100 million.
In Sun Valley, staff witnessed a treatment that begins with waste being dumped on a floor then processed over a series of belts. Organic matter is "squished," or compressed to remove liquid, she said.
"It looks like oatmeal. It smells so bad," she said, adding that the material then goes to another facility where it's rehydrated and treated conventionally as wastewater. That was estimated to cost about $30 million.
The third technology, pegged at about $25 million, would turn organic waste into a potentially marketable product.
Brooks described it as producing pellets, or fluff, that can be used for fuel.
"Now we have a usable product we could sell," she said. There has been some discussion of offering it as a green feedstock to an industrial user of coal in the Tehachapi area, she added.
No final decision has been made. "We're still looking," she said.
'CURVEBALL'
Pope told supervisors there's going to have to be a balance between taxpayer fees and hauler costs, and that rate negotiations with the county's franchise haulers continue. He said word this month that seven local haulers have agreed to sell to Fontana-based Burrtec Waste Industries came as a "curveball."
CalRecycle said by email it is working to train cities and counties on how to comply with the mandate taking effect in less than three months. A spokeswoman emphasized there are options for municipalities that cannot meet the deadline or need more time to come up with a plan.
Spokeswoman Maria West noted the state provides tools including model ordinances for adoption and sample marketing materials for helping residents understand the bigger value of meeting the requirements of SB 1383, the bill finalized in November requiring greater organic waste diversion.
"The implementation of SB 1383 is one of the fastest and easiest ways Californians can fight climate change, feed Californians in need, conserve our precious water used to grow food and move the state towards a future with less pollution and more green jobs," she wrote.
