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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1995-12-13 Solid Waste Advisory Committee MinutesSolid Waste Advisory Committee December 13 1995, Conference Room, Reading Town Hall - 1: Call to order The meeting was called to order at 7:34 p.m. Members present: Bob Brown, Jean Krogh, Anne Mark, Martha Moore, Lynda Zarrow, Sally Sabo, Kay Clark. Staff present: Ted McIntire, Ruth Clay. Associate member: Carol Nelson (appointed 12/5/95). Guests Present: Nancy Eaton (Conservation Commission), Camille Anthony. Presentation by:Todd McGrath and two associates from Meridian Engineering. 2. Approval of November minutes The minutes of the November meeting were approved as amended. 3. Unit Pricing Lynda wrote a letter to the Selectmen. Bob suggested that we make up a complete plan to propose with details of what we want to do. Discussion followed. Camille Anthony suggested that we present a plan to the board before beginning to build townwide consensus. The board plans to deal with condo trash collection in January. The subcommittee will meet on Jan. 5 to begin to devise our plan. 4. Town Collection of White Goods Discussion of pro's and con's interrupted to hear presentation. 6. Todd McGrath of Meridian Engineering - Landfill Mining He will give an overview of choices we may have regarding the landfill. There are two projects in Massachusetts: Fairhaven and Newbury. Defining terms: Reclamation means recovery of useful resources that were buried in the landfill such as metal objects. Mining means excavating and includes removing potentially hazardous materials. In Newbury they have removed over 200 tons of tires and sent them to Maine to use in asphalt. Wood from a torn down hotel was chipped and used for slope stabilization. The project was paid for by a $750, 000 bond funded by Newbury Board of Health. Newbury has 2500 households and 6500 people (compare to 7200-7300 homes in Reading). The toe of slope there 'was Parker River saltmarsh (tidal). The landfill was 12 acres, cap and fill costs are $110,000 per acre. Their goal is to reduce the footprint by half. They have recycled steel, wood, tires, batteries from the landfill, and reclaimed the soil. Two-thirds of what was dug up was soil 40,000 yards of cover dirt was stockpiled to use free later. DEP also approved that soil for use on any other landfills. They removed air spaces to reduce volume and removed potential hazards: automobile- batteries and bottles of used 'motor oil. The Newbury landfill was unlined. They moved the waste to.one side and re-Iandfilled it. They will then line the area to use for the landfill. They ended up with 25% of the original volume. You must monitor a capped and closed landfill for 30 years. The process involves an ISA (initial site assessment): geological survey, topography, history, etc. This will tell you if reclamation looks feasible. Then .a CSA (comprehensive site assessment) makes the decision if it is minable or not. it asks questions such as Is there a tire market? Can the freon be removed from landfilled refrigerators? The questions help determine if it is feasible. A bulldozer pushes the waste around. An excavator dumps a bucketful into the hopper. The waste goes through a revolving cylinder with a 2 screen and a 1 " screen. Two-thirds of each bucket was dirt. Then the waste goes onto a conveyor belt with three laborers. One pulls out wood, one steel, one tires. The wood goes into a tub grinder. Car batteries are put into a steel drum. They worked in Newbury for 22 weeks, and on only one day. they got 9ppm of hydrogen sulfide. Methane is lighter than air, vents up, and is released at the active face. They were lucky, there was no leaching into the wetlands. In 1988 and 1989 they did a series of test pits to get a sense of what is where. They also got information from old timers of what was located where (they used to have one part of the dump for tires, another for metal, etc.). A typical cubic yard of space in a landfill is worth $20 - 25, they are reclaiming each yard of space for $8. There are 3 choices of what to do: Class1: Complete reclamation - to reuse space. Class 2: Remedial - consolidate to reduce cap and closure costs; reduce footprint and environmental impact. Class 3: Consolidate - no processing, just move around. Shallow landfills, less than 35 ft. deep, are more cost effective to reclaim. Residential contents of landfill, not industrial waste, is more promising. Neighbors may complain about odors during reclamation. Our landfill was extensively studied when the Town was planning to sell the property to Homart, according to Ted McIntire. Landfill reuse is currently primarily recreational. Meridian still has a lot of work to do (in Newbury?). Tires are now going to Littleton, MA, the haul costs went up while they were sending them to Maine. They renegotiated the bid with the town, it now costs about $8.25/cubic yard to reclaim the Newbury landfill. The contract to do the mining was put out for low bid. Ted asked, "if we were going to build a hotel, what benefit would we have from mining first?" Answer: If you get it down to -virgin soil it can be de-listed, and it will be easier to market it. The liner for a landfill must be 60mlHDPE, 4 ft above the water table or ledge with compacted fill below it. Runoff collects on the liner and goes into a leachate system, water is then pumped back up and put back on the landfill. It contains oxygen that helps speed decomposition. Nancy Eaton commented that the Homart study showed us that our landfill is on wetlands, and is the headwaters of the Saugus River. The Conservation Commission needs to be very concerned with the ramifications of what we do with the landfill site. Mr. McGrath has a bibliography and resources we can use. Meridian is a surveying and civil engineering company with CAD capability located in Peabody. Meridian can provide data, surveying, prepare the plan. The RFP will go out in January or February 1996 to do the ISA for our landfill. We have been approved to receive clay from the Big Dig, so that will give us some time before we need to actually cap, as long as we are moving ahead. Ted said that we are developing a bid to cap the landfill, including the ISA and CSA. He estimates that this will take at least 18 months. 4 (continued) Town Collection of White Goods Bob Brown moved that we recommend to the Selectmen that white goods be collected on the same basis as bulk items with a fee to be determined later. Seconded by Martha Moore. Discussion. Comment: If the town makes a contract with a hauler, the hauler must dispose of the material legally, but if they don't, the town is still liable. The motion passed: 5-0-2. Concern was expressed about additional cost to the town resulting from this. Kay Clark moved to reconsider. Jean Krogh seconded. The move to reconsider passed:6-0-1. A new vote was taken on Bob Brown's motion. The motion was voted down: 0-6-1. Kay Clark formed a new motion: that we recommend to the Selectmen that white goods be collected by the town in such a manner that the town incurs no extra cost. Seconded by Lynda Zarrow. This motion passed: 7-0-0. 4b. New Contract for recyclables: Ted talked to Waste Management. Paperboard and junk mail can be included without a problem. The problem with including aluminum foil and food trays is usually food residues. Ted recommends a letter to the selectmen that white goods be included as an alternate item in the RFP and that mixed paper and paperboard be included in the general recycling bid. 7. Articles for local newspapers: Jean and Bob both had their articles published in the same Reading Notes. Jean submitted her article directly to both the Chronicle and Suburban News, but doesn't expect it to appear at this point. Ted will submit an article about Christmas trees for the Reading Notes. 5. Compost Bin Survey: 62 were mailed out, 12 were returned. All were favorable, but had only purchased their bins in fall of 1995. Lynda recommends repeating the survey in a year or two. Lynda will put the data in the Library box. 8. F. Library Circulation Box: Bob distributed articles to read and add to the box. A. Button batteries - Ruth reported that at the Hazardous Household Products forum she learned that mercuric oxide batteries are the real issue. Massachusetts will ban their sale in 1996, so button batteries will become a moot point soon. Bob said that in Europe it took 2 years after mercury was no longer added to batteries during manufacture for most of the mercury- containing batteries to be thrown away. ' B. Martha reported that REI decided not to collect rechargeable batteries. 10. Ted reports that Mr. Cohen still has the disposal contract. 11. White Paper - All buildings will increase their storage capacity and paper will be picked up every 3 months to help Waste Management control their costs. Ruth suggested eliminating the Solid Waste phone line since she believes it is rarely used and that the money could be better spent elsewhere. No one objected. 11. Old business: Jean requested that a discussion of Michael Berardo's proposal be put on a futureagenda. 12. New business: Carol has some articles she will put in the library box. Bob told of a biodegradable plastic bag that could be used when collecting leaves for the town composting area. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 10:13 P.M. Minutes submitted by Martha Moore