Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 11271990 - 2.4 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS sE. Contra y,. FROM: Costa Phil Batchelor, County Administrator ,_ County DATE: •... w November 19, 1990 srq.CouK SUBJECT: POSITION ON ABAG HAZARDOUS WASTE FACILITY ALLOCATION PLAN SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECON MENDATI ONS 1. Adopt the following comments as the Board of Supervisors' position on the current draft of ABAG' s Facility Allocation Plan and request the County' s representatives on the Facility Allocation Committee (Supervisor McPeak and Richmond Councilwoman Rosemary Corbin) to share these concerns with the Facility Allocation Committee at its meeting on November 30, 1990 . 2. Request staff to report back to the Board of Supervisors on the status of the ABAG Facility Allocation Plan as events warrant further reports. BACKGROUND: Concerns have recently been expressed regarding some of the details of the ABAG Facility Allocation Plan, which is intended . to place responsibility on various counties in the ABAG region for the siting of various types of hazardous waste treatment and disposal facilities. It is intended to provide a fairly objective way of placing this responsibility on the counties, which will have to make some difficult land use decisions. Staff have reviewed the draft Facility Allocation Plan and have noted some significant concerns about how the formula will' work in a real situation. It is recommended, therefore, that if the Board of Supervisors shares these concerns, this report be adopted as the Board' s position on the Facility Allocation Plan and that the CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENIYG%—YES SIGNATURE: RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE(S): ACTION OF BOARD ON _November 77 � 1 A A n APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED X OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE X UNANIMOUS(ABSENT ) AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN AYES: NOES: AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD ABSENT: ABSTAIN: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE ®SHOWN. CC: County Administrator ATTESTED- Health TTESTED Health Services Director PHIL BATCHELOR,CLERK OF THE BOARD OF Community Development Director SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR County Counsel:, Supervisor McPeak Councilwoman Corbin BY 'LClxL.J L ��� DEPUTY M382 (10/88) I I County' s representatives on the Facility Allocation Committee be asked to share these concerns with the Committee at their meeting on November 30, 1990. 1. The proposed plan does not take into account the degree of hazard of the waste being generated in each county. The proposed ABAG plan simply lumps all _ hazardous waste together and concludes that whichever county is contributing the most in overall volume to the regional deficit should be responsible for siting the type of facility lowest on the waste management hierarchy without any regard for the degree of hazard of the waste being generated within a county. 2 . The proposed plan does not take into account the degree of hazard the treatment or disposal capacity in a particular county can handle. The plan measures the treatment and disposal capacity of each county in terms of the gross volume capacity the facilities have and concludes on the basis of this volume which counties should be responsible for which types of treatment facilities. Facilities to handle used oil, contaminated soil, plating waste and spent solvents are all given the same weight in terms of the capacity of the county. An incinerator is given no more or less weight than a recycling facility. As a result, it is possible for a county not to be asked to site any facilities at all because it has a huge capacity to handle a relatively less dangerous waste while the industries in the county produce quantities of significantly more hazardous wastes which are simply ignored in terms of that county' s responsibility. 3 . The proposed plan does not take into account the fact that the private sector will determine what types of facilities will be located in a county, not the county or its cities. I - Telling a county that it will be responsible, for instance, for the siting of an incinerator would be fine if counties operated incinerators. However, while a county or city can make it difficult for the private sector to site a facility, they have limited ability to encourage the private sector to site a particular type of facility in a particular county. The proposed plan simply does not take into account private sector market forces which are what will actually determine where and when the siting of a particular type of facility is financially feasible. 4. The proposed plan does not take into account the ability of existing facilities to expand their current capacity in order to meet the region's needs for a particular type of treatment. The proposed plan simply assigns a particular treatment type to a particular county. The clear implication is that the county is responsible to site a new facility to handle this particular type of treatment. However, it may be much less expensive and more realistic to look to a firm which is in the region and already does this type of treatment to slightly expand its capacity rather than to site an entirely new facility which may not be economically feasible. However, if the existing facility isin a county which is not responsible for that treatment type how would such • an expansion ever occur? 5. The proposed plan does not take into account where various types of waste are generated in relation to where treatment for that type of waste will be expected to be located. A county will be assigned responsibility for a particular type of treatment, even if none or very little of the type of waste which would be handled by that type of treatment methodology is generated in that county. In fact it may be that most of the waste which would be expected to be handled at a particular type of facility is generated several counties away, necessitating transporting the waste some distance. In addition, why should a particular county be responsible for disposing of the entire region' s waste of a particular type when it generates none of that type of waste itself? 6. The proposed plan does not take into account theoretical capacity which is unlikely to be available in the near future and the fact that a particular facility may be selective in terms of the type of waste it will accept. The Rhone-Poulenc facility in Martinez is a classic example of this problem. The facility is likely to have a capacity far in excess of what the operators of the facility plan to use for a number of years. Yet the entire permitted capacity will be credited toward meeting the region' s incineration needs. In addition, since the facility is, in fact, an industrial plant - not just an incinerator - the operators will be somewhat selective about the types of hazardous waste they will accept for incineration. This is not taken into account in the proposed plan. As a result, it may be possible to show on paper that the region' s incineration needs are met when, in fact, that may be far from the truth in reality. 7 . The proposed plan does not take into account the fact that different counties are at different stages in terms of waste minimization and source reduction efforts. The proposed formula takes the current waste generation levels in each county, projects them into the future and reduces them by 25%, without any regard for what efforts the county and its industries have made to date in reducing waste generation. In fact, counties are effectively punished for having made such efforts in the past since they will be expected to achieve a 25% reduction from present levels, regardless of whether such efforts have already been made. 8. The proposed plan is unclear in terms of when a significant change in capacity or generation volume in 'a county will be taken into account. Since the private sector effectively controls when and where capacity will be added or subtracted, the plan should be capable of taking into account such changes, even though they have not taken place yet. A few years ago it would have been irresponsible to ignore the fact that the IT facilities in Contra Costa and Solano counties were going to be closed and that everyone involved knew that. By the same token, at some point in the permitting process, it will be appropriate to at least acknowledge the Rhone-Poulenc facility, even though it may be some time before it is actually operational. The plan seems to provide no mechanism for taking these known or likely events into account until they happen. The same is true about changes in the presence of hazardous waste generators in a county. If an industrial firm decides to close its facilities in one county and move elsewhere, this is usually known some time in advance. The fact that this will change the waste generation patterns in that county needs to be given some attention. The opposite, of course, is also true in terms of a new plant locating in ,a county which will increase the generation of waste in that county. This is likely. to be known months or years before any hazardous waste is actually generated. 9. Is it acceptable to the State for a single county to deny all future applications for hazardous waste facilities once that county has a net surplus of capacity over generation volume, even if there is a need in the region for the type of facility for which the application is being submitted? There is a clear assumption in the proposed plan that once a county has more capacity (of any type) than the volume of waste being generated (regardless of what type) that the county is no longer responsible to site any additional hazardous waste treatment or disposal facilities. If the region still has a need for a particular type of treatment or disposal facility and an applicant comes to a county which has met its capacity needs, the county is going to feel free to deny that application out-of-hand. Is this denial going to be acceptable to the State in case of an appeal? cc: County Administrator Health Services Director Community Development Director County Counsel Supervisor McPeak Councilwoman Corbin MIN 11 Attachment 1A October 10, 1990 To: Hazardous Waste Management Facility Allocation Committee From: Suzanne Larson, Committee Staff RE: FACII ITY ALLOCATION PLAN This memo outlines the current status of our facility allocation plan. RULES and ASSUMPTIONS 1. CONSISTENCY The allocation plan must be consistent with individual county hazardous waste management plans.- Note: lans.Note: All ABAG county plans should include the State Water Resources Control Board regulation, Title 23, Subchapter 15, requiring soil permeability no greater than 1 x 10-7 cm/sec as a siting criteria for residuals repositories. The Committee recommends that all County Hazardous Waste Management Plans should be amended to include this criteria. 2. WASTE REDUCTION Waste minimization will be encouraged to the fullest extent possible. The Committee will stay abreast of efforts by local governments in the Bay Area to minimize waste production. Since we are reviewing the data projections we will probably need to re-evaluate how to include a reduction scenario. 3. FLEXIBILITY The Committee, acting in a clearinghouse capacity, shall be updated at least every 6 months on the status of proposed management facilities and management facility closures. The Notice of Intent (NOI) process has loopholes so we will be relying on county staff to keep the Committee informed of important changes or proposed changes within each county. A formal update and review of this process should coincide with the 3 year planning schedule outlined in the Tanner legislation for Hazardous Waste Management Plans. z h 4. DATA The data is unlikely,to ever be an accurate reflection of the real world. The data will only be used as a relative I scale for allocating responsibility. We will use the 1989 generation figures as a base year and recalculate.the generation projections to the year 2Q00. 5. FACILITY RANKING . The facility allocation plan will use the waste minimization hierarchy as a gross risk assessment of facility types to "rank" types of facilities. We will use this ranking to assign county responsibility in the following order: Recycling and Reuse Treatment Incineration Residual Repository 6. REALITY CHECK Once the allocation formula has been applied the Technical Advisory Committee(TAC)will do a "reality check". Are the allocations reasonable? Should adjustments be incorporated to better reflect the "real world"? Using the results of the formula and the reality check as a starting point the Committee will then negotiate to make the facility allocation plan workable. FACILITY ALLOCATION FORMULA Step 1 Eliminate from consideration those counties that exceed their fair share of facility capacity. This is based upon their aggregate capacity minus estimated aggregate quantity generated. IF (Total Capacity - Total Generation) _ +, THEN eliminate county from further consideration. COUNTY HAS MET ITS FAIR SHARE IF (Total Capacity - Total Generation) THEN include county in Step 2. COUNTY HAS NOT MET ITS FAIR SHARE Using our current data (as an example only) for all nine counties (see attached table), this would eliminate Alameda, San Francisco and San Mateo from further consideration. a y } b .k��� �•'.�tri f'I'` yy 7 n �'�"' .i_�5Y.n' s> { rµ . r..e,� 'yr f. T AND _ Eliminate from siting consideration those treatment groups where the region exceeds its fair share of facility capacity. This is based upon treatment group specific aggregate capacity minus,aggregate quantity generated. FOR EACH TREATMENT GROUP: IF (Total Capacity - Total Generation) _ +, THEN eliminate this treatment group from further consideration. THE REGION HAS MET ITS FAIR SHARE IF (Total Capacity - Total Generation) THEN include Treatment group in Step 2. THERE IS A REGIONAL DEFICIT Using our current data, this would eliminate the Aqueous Organic, and Solvent Recovery treatment groups. Step 2 In this step we assign county responsibility for a specific treatment group. Only those counties and treatment groups remaining are considered. Counties are assigned a treatment group based upon their contribution to the overall regional capacity deficit. Those counties contributing the most are assigned treatment groups based upon our facility ranldng as described in Assumption 4. above: counties contributing the most to the overall regional deficit are matched with treatment groups that are lower on the waste minimization hierarchy. a) Starting with Residuals (lowest on hierarchy) assign responsibility for this category to the county that contributes the largest deficit to the regional total. Using our current data this would be Contra Costa. b) The next treatment type to consider is Incineration. Santa Clara would be assigned responsibility for this treatment group. c) Stabilization = Sonoma c) Aqueous Metals = Solano \ d) Oil Recovery = Napa e) Other Recycling = Marin These methods can be modified by or combined with negotiations to bring about a more realistic allocation. The intent here, is to present the Committee with a procedure to initiate the process of deciding who takes responsibility for what.