Minutes of Transfer Station Committee Meeting -- August 3rd, 2005 10:30 a.m.
In Attendance: Steve Maddock, Pete Bleyler, Pete MacDonald, Cynthia Bognolo, Marya Klee, Simon Carr
Apologies:Al Pryor.
1. Meeting with Selectboard: The committee had met with the Selectboard earlier concerning the recent incident at the transfer station. It was re-iterated that the committee were present at the transfer station in an advisory position only. If any issues arose, a committee member should make a note of these details and report them to the Selectboard for any enforcement action.
2. Operation:
a. Haul Charges: Whitcher is concerned at the reduction in MSW and says that he is losing money on the packer. He has submitted a revised proposal of $300 per haul for the packer. Other rates remain the same. The committee recognized that the reduction in MSW did impact Whitcher’s profit but felt that the increase is excessive. Simon was deputed to try and negotiate this down to $250/haul.
b. Glass Hauls: Steve had been talking with other NRRA members. Small towns do not necessarily have to have weigh slips for every glass delivery to a PGA consolidation site. On the basis of this, it might be possible to produce our weigh slip record to New London and carry out our initial plan for Whitcher to haul glass to New London when he came down to haul C&D. This would reduce our total haul charges. The tipping charge would increase by $1.33/ton to $10/ton.
c. Staffing:
i. Bonnie Delphia will not be starting, therefore we need to consider how to find an alternative employee. It was agreed that this was now urgent. Pete suggested that we consider a high school senior, but Cynthia considered that a senior would not do the necessary work. Rather than considering who might undertake the work, we should advertise, initially on the listserver and in the church newsletter.
ii. Policy: Pete Bleyler has produced a policy document setting out the requirements for managing the systems. Steve had reviewed it with Al, who felt that Jed should also have access to the town garage. Otherwise, it was felt this document covered the necessary aspects.
iii. Steve is undertaking a significant amount of mid-week work in organizing hauls and packing bins, at those times when Al is not available. The committee was concerned about this and asked Steve to summarize the additional work he was undertaking so that we could consider how to address this. Steve suggested that one possibility would be a Transfer Station Agent. Such a position might be comparable to that of Road Agent, where the person was responsible for overseeing the overall management of the transfer station.
3. Costs:
a. Budget Committee:
i. Compactor: Whitcher has given us an estimate for compactor and two 50cu. yd. containers. We do not, yet, have costs for the necessary fencing and installation costs. Simon had produced an initial layout showing a possible location and routing for the compactor, but he felt that we need to have an engineer give advice on this, to ensure that the siting and installation would meet state requirements.
ii. Steps: We need to allow for some form of steps and walkways to be included in the budget.
iii. Beautification: Cynthia will talk with local residents to determine suitable planting to conceal the transfer station. A 120ft roll of 9ft high green tennis court wind-screening is available for about $400 and would cover the side facing High Street, wrapping round to about halfway along the Highland Cemetery side. There would also be a labor cost in fixing it.
b. Cynthia asked if we could get comparable costs from other towns. Steve had talked with Tony Moehrke from Plainfield who was investigating the possibility of his town going PPT and had looked at other towns. From his figures, our labor costs were extremely low.
4. Welcome Pack: There is a welcome pack being prepared for new residents. We had been asked if we could provide the guidelines and a small green bag for this. It was agreed that this was a good idea.
5. Fluorescent Lights: The Energy Committee had asked us what the policy was for these. Although there are two programs available from NRRA for compact bulbs and tubes; each handling 24 units for $60. However, as these required dry storage, we could not yet implement these programs and fluorescent lights have to go to the hazardous waste days.
6. Next meeting: The next meeting will be Wednesday August 17th 2005 10.30 a.m. at Lyme Center Academy
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