About half of California’s waste stream is organic material, which includes green waste, food waste, and other miscellaneous matter. Currently, the majority of this waste ends up in landfills.
Green waste is primarily made up of grass clippings and leaves. For many years, the County of Orange (County) as the landfill operator has utilized the green waste as an organic buffer between trash layers, also referred to as Alternative Daily Cover (ADC). ADC is defined as cover material that is placed on the active face of a municipal solid waste landfill at the end of each operating day to control vectors, fires, odors, blowing litter, and scavenging. Jurisdictions and regional agencies receive diversion credit for ADC use, as it is not reported as regular trash disposal. Republic currently disposes of approximately 5,445 tons of green waste from Brea each year. The City receives diversion credit of approximately 5% for this material. Through December 31, 2019, the County did not charge for disposal of ADC since it was not considered regular trash.
Within the last five years, California has established a goal to reduce the amount of organic waste sent to landfills to 50 percent by 2020, and to 75 percent by 2025. As a result of this objective, Governor Brown signed Assembly Bill (AB) 1594 in September 2014. Effective January 1, 2020, AB 1594 specifies that ADC will no longer be considered diversion and will be considered regular trash. This means that Brea's diversion credit will be eliminated if we continue to dispose the green waste at the landfill. All California cities are required to divert at least 50% of their trash from the landfills each year. Brea's current diversion rate is 63%. If the diversion credit is eliminated, Brea's diversion rate will go down to 58% unless the green waste is disposed somewhere other than the landfill.
The City has been working with its hauler, Republic Services, to address this matter. At the City Council meeting on November 19, 2019, Council reviewed the options available to be in compliance with AB 1594, which included disposal of the green waste at a facility outside the landfill or continue to dispose at the landfill and lose the diversion credit. After reviewing the options, the City Council decided that the green waste continue to be disposed at the landfill. Under this scenario, the City would still meet CalRecycle’s diversion rate since it would remain above 50% and this option would also allow the City the flexibility to consider participating in other recycling options that are expected to become available in the future, such as composting at the landfill.
The County of Orange is in the process of conducting a pilot composting program at their landfills. The pilot project involves the County of Orange accepting green waste for composting at their San Juan Capistrano, Irvine, and Brea landfills. The County is currently in the permitting process for San Juan Capistrano and Irvine landfills. Irvine is anticipated to be in operation in the Summer of 2020 and San Juan Capistrano in 2021. Brea’s permitting process is anticipated to begin in 2021 and potentially open for business in 2022. The City will continue to work closely with the County of Orange to assure that Brea gets priority for composting of our green waste, especially since Brea is a landfill host city. If the composted material leaves the landfill, we would expect to have our diversion credit restored.
Currently, residents already pay for collection and transportation of green waste taken to the landfill, but does not include disposal. Republic Services proposed a rate increase of $0.69 per residential household per month for this option since it essentially adds the County's new tipping fee to the residential trash rate. See attached exhibit to Resolution for Rate Calculation. The proposed rate increase will add the new County tip fee for treating the green waste as disposal.
Proposition 218 requires a mailed notice to each property owner and property tenant directly responsible for paying the proposed fee increase (collectively, “rate payers”), followed by a Public Hearing not less than 45 days after the mailing. At the November 19, 2019 meeting, City Council set the Public Hearing for the proposed rate increase for January 21, 2020, and directed staff to mail out formal Public hearing notices to all residential households; in addition, staff has also prepared a contract amendment and fee resolution for consideration at the January 21, 2020 in order to formally adopt the changes, if approved.
A notice to rate payers was sent out on December 2, 2019. A copy is provided as Attachment 1 – Public Hearing Notice. A Public Hearing is being held for City Council to review the results of the Proposition 218 process, and to consider adopting the green waste rate increase for residential customers in conformance with AB 1594. Unless protests are received from a majority of rate payers (50% + 1) prior to the conclusion of the Public Hearing, the City Council can adopt a Resolution to impose this rate increase. In accordance with state law (Government Code § 36936), at least three Council Members must vote in favor of the Resolution for it to be adopted.
Three protests were received by staff at the time this report was prepared. In order for there to be a majority protest on this item, there needs to be 7,180 protest votes.
Contract Amendment
To document the proposed rate increase and changes to the green waste recycling program, staff is recommending approval of Amendment 1 to original agreement. In summary, the three-page agreement simply states the change in law, includes exhibits showing the proposed rate increase and rate calculation (back-up), and leaves the ability to negotiate in good faith should a better disposal alternative come to fruition in the future. |