By MY WRITE BY BILL BAUER
Paid by City Hall, consultants Gershman, Brickner and Bratton, Inc., recently presented their strategic review of the city’s solid waste management system — it’s a lot of confusing information about trash.
The latest in a series of unaudited reports, the review is produced internally and externally over the years, detailing how City Hall handles water, garbage, sewage and storm water runoff — all under the department of environmental and public works.
The review echoed past reports by confirming City Hall’s solid waste services were not performing up to optimum level, that the transfer facility was losing $939,000 annually and that single and multi-family residential rates were much higher than commercial rates.
Last June, the City Council approved an incremental series of rate increases which immediately hiked water and trash rates an average of 10 percent. The City Council on Tuesday night will consider further rate increases ranging from 5 percent to 10 percent annually.
The consultant reports that Santa Monica single-family homes already pay $372 annually for basic weekly curbside refuse and recycling services. Those services could cost homeowners more than $444 by 2008, based on increases recommended by staff last June. Refuse service for single-family properties in Pasadena is $352 annually; Culver City $266; Los Angeles $132 and Glendale $190.
According to the consultant’s report, in 2004-05, for one 95-gallon cart collected once per week, single-family customers pay $62 bi-monthly, multi-family customers pay $50 and commercial customers pay $37. Residential customers must use city services. Commercial businesses can hire private firms, which keeps city fees competitive in the business sector.
When it comes to 68-gallon carts, single-family property owners pay $16.58 per cubic yard of refuse per month while commercial customers pay $8.86, or almost half of what single-family homeowners pay. Multi-family property owners pay $13.12. Even so, the consultant reports that the cost of service to single-family and commercial clients and the cost of transfer and disposal operations are not recovered. Multi-family trash service does produce net revenue.
City Hall claims it does a better job of recycling, green waste collection, street sweeping — a separate fee in many cities — and food waste collection, so that’s why we pay more.
I noted previously (SMDP, June 13, 2005, page 4), that the present city yard is an environmental nightmare. There’s no roof or misting system to keep dust down. Toxic water and corrosive liquids still pour into the storm drain and into the bay untreated.
Last May, city staff told the council that City Hall’s solid waste fund, created to pay for facility upgrades and replacements, has instead been squandered to cover the department’s operational deficit. In just three years, a surplus of $1.5 million became a deficit of $1.2 million — and it’s growing by the day. Even more rate increases will be required to cover the deficit, let alone pay for a new facility costing between $12 million and $15 million.
To meet state compliance standards regarding the amount of allowable trash on site, City Hall loads tons of garbage into haulers and drives it to Community Recycling in Sun Valley. It’s then unloaded at a material recycling facility, known as a “dirty MRF” because it’s where unrecycled “black bin garbage” is processed. Then it’s sorted, loaded into another hauler and delivered to a landfill.
One advantage of transferring waste to Sun Valley is the 15 percent recycling credit City Hall receives no matter how little, or how much recyclables are actually recovered from refuse. But is it enough to offset savings incurred by turning over “excess” garbage to the privately owned, licensed transfer facility just next door?
In 2005, Community Recycling handled 12,500 tons of Santa Monica garbage, plus 15,800 tons of construction debris and was paid over $1 million — amazingly, without even submitting a bid or a request for proposal.
There’s another secret City Hall would rather you didn’t know about. Despite boasting about being sustainable and “green,” in 2004-05, more than 13,000 tons of garbage were sent to “waste to energy” treatment facilities where, yes, it was burned.
I mentioned last June that Santa Monica disposes of 103 tons of hazardous material — such as paint, solvents and corrosives — annually at a cost of $335,000. That’s a whopping $3,140.77 per ton. The national average is $1,100 per ton. There’s still no explanation why our cost is almost three times the national average.
There still seems to be much amiss in the way we handle waste management. It’s obvious that serious changes must be made starting with an external, independent financial audit of the department’s figures.
I still see a lot of garbage and I’m still waiting for City Hall to get to the bottom of it. (Bill Bauer has lived and written in Santa Monica for 34 years. He)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 24, 2006. Read the original PDF.