Marion County Board of County Commissioners

Transcription

1 Marion County Board of County Commissioners Solid Waste 5601 SE 66th St. Ocala, FL Phone: Fax: Solid Waste Authority Task Force Meeting Growth Services Training Room, 2710 E. Silver Springs Blvd., Ocala February 27, 9:00 a.m. Attendees: Commissioner Carl Zalak, Marion County; Fred Hawkins, Jr., Business Development Manager, Osceola County Commission; Lee Niblock, County Administrator, Marion County; Mounir Bouyounes, Assistant County Administrator, Mike Sims, Solid Waste Director, Marion County; Kelsi Oswald, Program Manager, Pinellas County;, Casey Stephens, Solid Waste Director, Citrus County; Tim Hunt, Consultant, SCS Engineers; Ray Dever, Vice President, SCS Engineers; Guy Minter, County Attorney, Marion County; Michael Tomich, Budget Director, Marion County Clerk of the Court; John Garri, Finance Director, Marion County Clerk of the Court; Wallace Watford, Internal Auditor, Marion County Clerk of Court; Sachiko H. Leon, Sr. Auditor, Marion County Clerk of the Court; Joe Pitonzo, Sr. Accountant, Marion County Clerk of the Court; Glen Fiorello, Personalized Waste. Opening remarks: Commissioner Carl Zalak opened the meeting and welcomed those in attendance. The ACMS Landfill is just 30 days away from accepting debris. Marion County has been able to do financing on the front end of construction with money that has been saved over the years. Marion County wants to take a really long look at what we can do to solve the solid waste problem in our community as well as regionally and that is why we are here today. Is it worthwhile to form a solid waste authority and what will that look like? Do we have a working relationship with the company that is there today or do we buy those folks out and operate ourselves or do we have them operate it. We ve got some experts here today that have already done that. There are lots of decisions along the way and we would like your help so that we can make sure we come up with the best process from experience and also from a legal standpoint so that we protect our communities and our taxpayers. Introduction of: Ray Dever, Vice President, SCS Engineers take us through a quick PowerPoint Update on ACMS Landfill: Ray Dever ACMS is a Regional Class I Landfill located in Sumter County approximately one-half mile east of I-75 at the 470 interchange. It is 660 acres in size. The initial permitted landfill area consists of sub cells 1,2,3,4 approximately 60 acres in size. The first two subcells (approximately 30 acres) have an estimated 9 years of airspace if receiving 1,500 tons/day.

2 Construction Contract 1 nearly complete (landfill site work, stormwater system, roadway construction, landscape berms, etc.) The final walk through is scheduled this week. Contract 2 is complete (geosynthetic liner system; leachate collection piping & force main, leachate collection pump stations, storage structure and truck loading system). ACMS has contracted with a private company to truck leachate off site. The scale house upgrade is expected to be done in the next few weeks. Introduction of: Tim Hunter, first employee of the Palm Beach County Authority, 20 years as executive director Palm Beach County Authority Background Palm Beach County created an Authority in There were 37 municipalities half of which were operating dump sites. The disposal sites the Cities had were trash fills for the most part & were time limited due to growth and environmental regulations. The Cities were dependent on the County for disposal but didn t trust the County. So, the Municipal League lead by West Palm Beach & other large cities wrote legislation to create an independent solid waste authority with a 7 member governing board. There were 4 elected municipal officials and 3 county commissioners. These members were appointed annually by their own bodies and confirmed by local legislative delegation. The purpose of the Authority was to plan for and implement a modern solid waste management system to replace the entire series of dump sites located across the County. The initial legislation had no revenue stream, no source of bonding, no facilities and no manpower. But, they had this task. There was a provision in the legislation that required the County commission to loan the Authority up to $50,000 a year to do the initial planning work. This money had to be paid back, however. The Authority borrowed the $50 thousand dollars and began this grand study (done in pieces) because they didn t have enough to do the whole thing at once. It was decided that they would have a Waste-To-Energy (WTE) plant (primarily due to the Energy Embargo in 1976) as mandated by the state legislature. The legislature later changed that mandate to include only preferred counties. So, initially the Authority was going to do a WTE plant, a landfill and a transfer station. The Authority knew that a transfer station was needed because of the rapid growth in Palm Beach. The Transfer stations would also serve as emergency management facilities. They provided a close-in facility for public/private collectors to move garbage, quickly unload it, and get back to the streets. Since the Authority still had no money, it took a series of amendments that had to go back to the legislature to get approval. The amendments gave them bonding authority and the ability to take land. Even though the Authority had many of the powers of a local government, they did not have the power to tax. This remained the exclusive domain of municipal, county and state governments. The Authority negotiated with the City of Del Ray Beach for property that had a private transfer station and then begged the bank for money to rehab the facility & put it into operation. The transfer station was put into operation with a contract with 2 cities. The Authority then went to the Glades and contracted with 3 cities, took over one of the landfills, closed it and built a transfer station on the site (again begging the bank for money). About 2 years later the county turned over the rest of their facilities. The four landfills were nearing closure and the county didn t have the money to close them. Two of the four landfills were leaking like sieves which also had to be dealt with. Most of their equipment was either old junk or leased, so they were willing to give them up. The Authority now had all the garbage in the county except for a little bit of trash. 2

3 Since Palm Beach had fixed the legislation to allow bonding, the Authority went through a series of revenue bond issues. The first $43 million was to get started with some transfer stations, siting a major facility and initial construction. Over a 6 year period, Palm Beach went through siting of 4 transfer stations and the central facility. It included a landfill, WTE plant and all the ancillary stuff that goes with it. Two more transfer stations and another siting was completed in the next couple of years. Now that the system was in place, it would take $400 million to build. There was a captive audience on the waste stream and we had tipping fees but that wasn t enough for a loan of $400 million. The answer was an assessment on all current property in the county, put on the tax bill. There is a residential assessment (starting out with 4 categories) and a commercial assessment (3 categories). In the beginning, the commercial assessment was 70% of what the total cost was on a per ton basis. It is not 86%. You get anywhere from 94% to 96% payment from your tax bill so that was good enough to bond with as a revenue bonding. By 1990, the municipalities had achieved their objectives. All infrastructures were in place, enough to last the county for decades. New River Association (Union County) The New River Association is located in Union County. It is an association of 3 counties with one central disposal facility. It is run by a joint board of the three counties with an executive director and a staff that has been in place for many years. This is a dependent board because the counties all sit on the board. This authority is one of the oldest in the state. The landfill is located there and has a lot of capacity. This equivalent of an authority is a creation of inter-local agreements which is called an Administration. You can do this without any help from the legislature. You can create your local agreement with any city, municipality or county that wants to partner with you. However, the Administration cannot get some of the powers of a solid waste authority. You have to share those powers with county or municipal governments. Also called joint power agreements (another term for inter-local agreements), they do work. In the state of California, it s the only kind of authority there is. You can mold authorities around whatever you want to. The organizational structure can be created, like art, to give you what you want and the powers that you need to do what you want. You first have to decide why you would want one. In the case of Palm Beach County, it was simple. The cities didn t trust the county and the county didn t trust the cities. The cities wanted to secure their long term interest in solid waste management to make sure the system was there forever and they would not have to worry about it. The cities had no confidence that the county would do that. That was their driving force. Other organizations do it for their own reasons. For example, Pinellas County has a Pinellas County Utilities Board. Brevard County was a very early authority but is a dependent district to the board of county commissioners (which most of them are). Many counties have authorities for no other reason than to put their fees on the tax bill. Some are known as districts, others as special districts. These things are not new, they are not uncommon. The only thing that might be different now than in the past is that if you wanted a special authority or special district, the partners would get together and write the document. They would then go to their local legislative delegation and convince them that this is a great deal. Once the legislative delegation put their rubber stamp on it, it was a done deal. Tallahassee didn t overrule the local legislation. That may not be the case now. Guy Minter, County Attorney: Aucilla, how do they collect their... do they put it on their tax bill? Mr. Hunter: No, as a local Administration with an inter-local agreement, they can t. This is a special authority. Guy Minter: How do they do that then? 3

4 Mr. Hunter: They have fees. This is a joint agreement between jurisdictions. It is a commitment to provide your solid waste to a facility. It doesn t support revenue issues or anything like that. It does support a budgetary ability to maintain control of pricing. The Downside of an Authority Now for the downside. Most often the downside is a very short painful thing. Then it goes away. In authorities, partners give up something in the process. Example: In City A you have sole authority over your solid waste (how it is collected, where you send it, ultimately you determine how it is disposed of, how much you pay and who you do business with). Generally, in an authority, you will be giving that up to another organization. Your participation is to make sure the authority maintains the initial commitments to do whatever got you into the agreement for. Where giving up authority was painful for a lot of elected officials, once it s done, it s done. No more siting, the facilities are in place, the long term is secure, the rates are stabilized and then you move on to other things. Commissioner Zalak: Thank you so much Tim. Ray, would you like to speak on the trends of solid waste disposal? Trends in Solid Waste Disposal Mr. Dever: Waste flows have been up and down for several years. It is an issue local governments struggle within their business models. I think, due to the economic situation over the last several years, there is definitely a trend for more, if you want to call it, regionalization. Smaller counties & municipalities still cling to a small landfill for various reasons. Perhaps as Tim mentioned, they are fearful of giving up control of their own destiny, but in terms of economics it doesn t make a lot of sense to run a site with only 50 tons per day. Mr. Hunter: Let me reiterate what Ray said. The cost of owning and operating any kind of solid waste facility today is not nearly as inexpensive as it was 20 years ago. It s all about amassing waste and the revenue that comes with it in order to put together the size of the money bag you need to build a facility, operate the facility and close the facility plus take care of it forever. That is what is needed and that is why we don t have any more class II landfills in the state of Florida. Do economic benefits come with size, sure. The larger input of a waste stream you have going into a landfill, the better. All of your costs are fixed, like with a transfer station. Once you build a transfer station, it s all dirt, concrete and steel. The structure itself has become a very small number. Same thing with a landfill. You own the land and once you build the infrastructure, the landfill itself becomes a very small number. Palm Beach paid $35 million for a piece of land for a landfill. The cost on a per ton basis for the life of the landfill is only $1.10. Those are the benefits. There are also headaches. Weigh and balance. You can t finance a site on the guaranteed waste stream. There are too many things that happen that disrupt the stream. You have to take a more conservative view. Finance on a lesser number, say 70% of whatever you re getting. If you can make it work, you can bank the other 30%. In the private sector there is nothing wrong with that. And, you have to recognize what the private sector is there for. They are there to make money and answer to their shareholders & board of directors. That is their sole purpose in life. You have to deal with them on a business basis only. You can have a great relationship for a long period of time but they are not your pal. In Marion County, your contract goes with the land. If you form an authority, then you will have to find a way to extend to the other players or their benefit will not even be close to equaling yours. It makes for an unequal agreement. Authorities do not exist on that basis. All players are in the pot together. Is there anything new on the horizon, not really. We will be depending on landfills for a long, long time. No magic bullets. We have learned about plasma arc and other gasification technologies which all work on small scales. They work outside this country. Of the few that are operating in this county (one in the panhandle), they are very small scale operations. Africa would love to be where you are right now. They are about

5 with their solid waste. They are building on what you ve already done and learned. You will have to learn based on the people around you and figure out what works and doesn t work to mold your own path. Commissioner Zalak: Thank you. Any questions? Michael Tomich: I would just like to know a little more about the various funding sources. It sounds like everything comes down to an assessment. Are there any other funding sources? I realize this (the assessment) is the obvious one. Mr. Hunter: You can do it on fees, but fees are associated with the waste flow, and waste flow is interruptible. You will have a hard time selling bonds based on waste flow, unless the members of the authority commit their local governments full faith & credit, on a pro rata basis, to back up the bonds. That will work but you will have to sell your tax payers on that. Question: With a multi-county like New River Solid Waste Association, are they, is this an authority? Mr. Hunter: Yes. Question: Does the authority have the power to levy the assessment? Mr. Hunter: Yes. Question: Earlier you were saying that authorities don t have the power to tax. Mr. Hunter: None of these organizations that I know of have the power to tax. Question: But they do have the ability to levy an assessment? Mr. Hunter: Yes. Question: What happens to the closure and long term care in regard to the county commission, does the liability rest with the county or the authority? Mr. Hunter: If you want the authority to be responsible for post closure of old dump sites, you can make it a part of the deal when you are creating the authority. In Palm Beach County it was a contractual decision between the commissioners and the governing board of the authority (which at the time was a majority of municipalities) that the authority would take over the landfills, assume responsibility for closure and post-closure and remediation if required. John Garri: Mike (Sims), in this structure, are we anticipating shifting Baseline over to the authority or is that going to be a part of the deal? Mike Sims: That really hasn t been discussed at this time, John. As we have been filling the Baseline facility, we have been putting money aside for closure. John Garri: What about those 5 other little dumps that we have, would they be shifted over to the authority? Mike Sims: It comes back to, is it in the best interest of Marion County and the interest of the authority to assume that responsibility and liability. Commissioner Zalak: I guess, if we had people who had that same situation, and we all wanted to put those things in an authority, that s fine. My guess is we wouldn t. We would keep those liabilities on the Marion County side. 5

6 Guy Minter: We obviously don t have a huge turnout today, but clearly our concept, we were only contemplating the Sumter County facility as the property, the authority but I don t think anyone ever contemplated that every member would bring their baggage with them or that the authority would assume responsibility for old landfills. Marion County would never want to do that.??they may not bring their baggage with them, but they would bring their assets. Commissioner Zalak: Right. Each entity would need to have the ability to transfer to Sumter County. The transfer stations could be a part of the deal. Whether shipping by truck or rail; having one trucking company and a set of transfer stations may be something that the authority would want to run. Question: My question would be, you guys (Marion County) bought 20 years of air space? Commissioner Zalak: Yes. Question: Based on your average tonnage, if you took that over 20 years, how much air space are you offering to members? What would be left after Marion? Guy Minter: We are not offering air space we ve bought; we re talking about setting up an authority with the remaining capacity. Commissioner Zalak: We bought 2.5 million tons. I am guessing from a business standpoint that ACMS will eventually get a deal they can t refuse. Instead of dealing with a Waste Management or someone of that caliber, it could benefit the communities and municipalities to come together & seal their own destiny. We are looking from a long term period, for others that are within 5-10 years of closing their landfills, or they have a site they want to transfer from, to come on board and help us. At the end of the day, we will be able to bond from the flows of the members and bring a deal to the table. Mr. Dever: You are pretty safe with the big three in the state (Waste Management, Republics, etc.) Waste Pro would be the biggest one that comes to mind since they don t have a regional landfill. Waste Pro has a lot of market share in North Central Florida. If the deal is good enough, ACMS will be set for life. They will want to take the money over 10 years versus 70 years. Question: The Authority would have to have ownership of the transfer stations in order to keep everybody in. Commissioner Zalak: That s a good idea. Question: To what extent does flow control enter into the picture? For example, in Palm Beach, it sounds like you have complete captivity. Mr. Hunter: All jurisdictions in Palm Beach are captive. Disposal is prepaid. Question: How do you handle collection? Mr. Hunter: The solid waste authority contracts with the board of county commissioners and it was franchised out. Question: Do you have mandatory collection? Mr. Hunter: Absolutely. 6

7 Question: I m trying to understand the framework of the authority, where does the flow control and mandatory collection fit in? Commissioner Zalak: Flow control, as an example, the city of Ocala collects both residential and commercial waste. They would come on board with us, we would guarantee them a set price and they would guarantee their flow. The county has residential flow right now. It doesn t cost the hauler anything to bring the flow from the unincorporated areas to us. Mr. Hunter: It is essentially contracting. As long as the contract is viewed as secure, you can achieve flow control. Question: You can direct your hauler to take the waste to you? Mr. Hunter: You can do that, but it has to be through a bid process, so all the players know at the time of their bid that all waste collected goes to you. There shouldn t be any question. Commissioner Zalak: That s a bit easier for municipalities that pick up their own garbage, like the City of Ocala. They can change on the fly whereas some other municipality would have to wait out any current contract they were under. Commissioner Zalak: Any other questions, Scott? It s been a great conversation and I have learned a lot today. Everyone has our contact information. We re going to put together another meeting a little bit later on. I m guessing New River is a collection of county commissions. Are they dependent on the taxing district of one board or all three? Mr. Hunter: All three. Commissioner Zalak: What do you guys think about setting up something like that? I m thinking it has to be dependent on multiple boards. Any feedback? Mr. Hunter: It really depends. If you have 3 counties and 14 cities, it would have to be structured to be representative but certainly not the full board. Commissioner Zalak: So we ll have to figure it out we ll have to get enough flow and dedicated members to buy the facility. That s our first step. We ll have to figure out what the tonnage is so that we can guarantee and then by contract lope the rest of it up. That s the new challenge. How are you guys doing it in Pinellas County? Kelsi Oswald: We are set up probably as an Administration. We did have a legislative act formed, but we have a management committee. The county has a representative and the large cities as well. Small cities have one representative per group (i.e. a, b & c for small beach communities). Commissioner Zalak: How do the groups integrate? Kelsi Oswald: We have inter local agreements. The cities committed their waste to us which we had to do to get the bonding to build the energy plant. We talk about long range planning, any significant changes we want to make, what we re doing or starting up any new programs. Things that are going to take a significant capital 7

8 investment we present to the board for their consideration. It is more of a recommendation process than an approval process but the board still makes the final decision. Cities within Pinellas would love for us to lower rates right now, because everyone is suffering financially, but we have not raised our rates since Commissioner Zalak: Do you have the ability to maintain the waste stream for that long? Kelsi Oswald: Yes, we are now in the position of having reserves to fund future capital. Commissioner Zalak: Any other questions? Scott: Can we do a web n r next time? Commissioner Zalak: Thank you, that s a great idea. Thank you all so much for coming. Meeting adjourned at 10:25 a.m. 8