HomeMy WebLinkAbout1987-03-16 - City Commission Workshop Meeting MinutescI
MAIL REPLY TO:
P.O. BOX 25010
TAMARAC, FLORIDA 33320
5811 NORTHWEST 88TH AVENUE 0 TAMARAC, FLORIDA 33321
TELEPHONE (305) 722-5900
March 9, 1987
NOTICE OF CITY COUNCIL
WORKSHOP MEETING
TAMARAC, FLORIDA
Please be advised that there will be a City Council, Workshop
Meeting on Monday, March 16, 1987 at 9:00 A.M. in the Council
Chambers of City Hall, 5811 NW 88 Avenue, Tamarac, Florida.
• The purpose of this Workshop Meeting concerns the Interlocal
Agreement for Solid Waste Disposal Service. Thomas M.
Henderson, Resource Recovery Project Director, will also be
in attendance.
The public is invited to attend.
CEB/pm
r]
Cam -
Carol E. Barbuto
City Clerk
AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
POLICY OF NONDISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF HANDICAPPED STATUS
CITY OF TAMARAC
CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MEETING
MONDAY, MARCH 16, 1987
CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Hart called this Workshop Meeting to Order
on Monday, March 16, 1987 at 9:00 A.M. in the Council Chambers.
R_OLL_GALL: Mayor Bernard Hart
Vice Mayor Jack Stelzer
Councilman Sydney M. Stein
ABSENT & EXCUSED_ Councilwoman Helen Massaro
Councilman Arthur H. Gottesman
ALSO PRESENT: John P. Kelly, City Manager
A. Bryant Applegate, City Attorney
Yvonne E. Snyder, Secretary
Mayor Hart announced the purpose of this meeting concerns the
Interlocal Agreement for Solid Waste Disposal Service.
City Manager John P. Kelly said in response to the Council's
inquiries and concerns to the Resource Recovery prO posals, he
invited Mr. Thomas Henderson, Resource Recovery Project Director,
to give a demonstration in regards to the project and the impact
it would have on the City.
Mr. Henderson said with the help of the League of Cities and the
Staff from the various Cities, the County had been able to put
together a Resource Recovery Program which consisted of 3
Projects. He said two were research recovery projects and the
third would be for a new sanitary land fill. He said the
facility that would serve the Tamarac Community would be the
north resource recovery project located on N. W. 48 Street, east
of the Turnpike, west of Powerline Road adjacent to the existing
waste management land zone. He said the second project, the
south resource recovery project, would be located at the
Intersection of 441 and State Road 84, which would serve the
southern region of the County. He said the third project would
be for a new sanitary landfill being built in the southwest
region of the County located at US 27 between Sheridan Street and
Sterling Road and would provide contingency and trash with
quality services.
Mr. Henderson defined the technology of mass burning by saying it
involved taking the garbage and trash collected from homes and
businesses to the plant and burning it in a wastekeep recovery
furnace boiler system. He said the heat value that would be
captured would be used for producing electricity which helps to
defray the cost of capital and operating expenses of the
facility. He said the residue that could not be reused, such as
metal, etc., would be used as landfill ending up with 10% volume
of what had been started.
Mr. Henderson said the program had been developed for 7 to 10
years and the search for changes and development of the program
had been very extensive involving consulting engineers, staff and
officials from the Cities and Counties. He said these people had
traveled around the world looking at and evaluating the options
to provide a program that would benefit disposing of the waste
for many years without any technological risks.
3/16/87
/yo
1
Mr. Henderson said landfill sights were becoming scarce and the
County Commissioners, after looking at numerous solid waste
disposal options, decided to proceed with mass burning because
there are over 500 facilities operating at the present time
worldwide, three of which are in Florida with 2 presently under
construction and completed this year.
Mr. Henderson said zoning on both sites have been approved and
the State, Regional and local approval had been obtained with
Federal Air permits expected to arrive in the next few weeks.
Mr. Henderson said the revenue stream would evolve around
electricity for which, at this particular time, South Florida has
a big demand. He said Interconnection Agreements with the 2
Companies and F P & L have been approved by the Florida Public
Service Commission and the contracts guaranteed full price of the
electricity, which would be used to operate these projects.
Mr. Henderson said the north project was being built by Waste
Management, Inc., which is the largest waste Company in the world
with 20 years experience and 100 units installed worldwide. He
said the south projects would be built by Sigma Environmental
Systems, which opened in 1975 and has 5 operating systems, 1
system in start up and 2 systems in construction. He said Sigma
Environmental Systems had a project in Pinnelas County, which is
the biggest project of its kind and, in the last 11 years, Sigma
burnt over ten million tons of garbage.
Mr. Henderson said it was important for the Cities using this
burning to understand what contract obligations were expected in
regards to the waste that was not burned. He said the City had
the right to pass Ordinances, to have mandatory recycling or
establish a voluntary program for whatever waste was left and
there would be no minimum or maximum commitment the District or
County would want in the Contract. He said the only commitment
would be to get rid of whatever waste would accumulate in the
next 20 years. He said the Vendors have been given 1 overall
footer pay commitment, in other words, the County would commit to
deliver so many tons to the Company and, if for some reason could
not deliver that amount, the Company would get paid the amount as
promised by the County.
Mr. Henderson said the County put together a financial packet
and, in 1984, the County sold 521 million dollars worth of
Revenue Bonds which were put into an escrow account. He said
during the validation process, the County went to the Courts and
said, "At such time as we are ready to put this under
construction, we want to be able to remarket these bonds as
Industrial Development Bonds", which has been approved by the
Local Courts and the Florida supreme Court. He said the Bonds
were issued under the 1983 tax laws which were not impacted by
the last 3 tax bills and would be remarketed this November. He
said the County and Cities were not obligated to these Bonds.
Mr. Henderson said the County also issued a 50 million dollar
bond which would be taken out at the issuance of the Bonds for
County taxes of the Development.
He said since the Companies were previously owned facilities,
they would be putting in over 100 million dollars of their own
money for the project. He said the Engineers who would be
building these facilities would be Russ Engineering for the south
facilities and M. K. Ferguson for the north facilities.
/yo
2
3/16/87
Mr. Henderson said the main obligation of each City would be to
send the waste to the facilities and make arrangements to pay the
tipping fees. He said most Cities already had a franchised
hauler. He said the County would provide for the Administrative
support, which would consist of 3 to 4 people at each facility.
These people would be handling the billings and coordinating the
facilities. He said the tipping fees, after development would be
no higher than $70.00 and these fees would be fixed for 20 years
unless there should be a need for expansion of the facilities
and, if there should be need for expansion, the fees could not be
increased any more than 15% without coming back to the Cities for
their consent.
Ed West, President of Agri -Post, Inc., said there were not many
ways to get rid of waste and by burning waste, there would be a
lot of non --burnable items involved. He said another way of
getting rid of waste would be compost, which was a natural way of
getting rid of waste and Agri -Post did it that way. He said in
order to use any system, money would need to be spent and, if the
right amount was spent, any system would work. He said to use a
system at the lowest possible cost would benefit the Cities.
Mr. West said his Company had not made an individual offer to the
City of Tamarac because the amount of garbage that accumulated in
Tamarac would not be cost efficient to Tamarac, however, if his
Company could get an agreement from other Cities as well as
Tamarac, Agri -Post could be the Compost Vendors. He said his
Company made a proposal to Hollywood and in that proposal they
agreed they would only obtain Hollywood's waste, which amounted
to 80 thousand tons per year and a $40.00 per ton tipping fee.
He said there were approximately 70 thousand extra tons of waste
in neighboring communities such as Pembroke Pines, Miramar,
Hallandale, Davie, Cooper City, etc., which, upon visiting these
communities with the system, were interested in contracting
together. He submitted an additional bid to the City of
Hollywood with the figures of adjoining Cities using composting
and the proposal quoted 150 thousand tons a year at a cost of
$35.00 per ton. He said if other Cities joined the system and
the tonnage would increase to 250 thousand tons per year, the fee
would only be $30.00 per ton. Mr. West said the tipping fee cost
was capulated to cover debt service operations, maintenance and a
safety or contingency factor; therefore, the Agri-Post's charge
covered the cost of operations of the facilities and Agri -Post
would be making little or not profit from the tipping fee.
Mr. West said his company has studied the marketing factor for
three years and, after extensive research, this type of waste
disposal had tremendous marketing value; therefore, his Company
would be willing to share the revenues from the end products with
the Cities. Mr. West said if a contract would be issued by his
Company to the Cities, all that would be required by the Cities
would be the commitment to give Agri -Post their waste, agree to a
tipping fee, which would be proposed, and the assistance in site
acquisition. He said his Company would take care of designing,
building, financing, owning and operating the plant and taking
all responsibility in dispensing the waste.
Mr. West then showed slides of what Composting consisted of.
Mr. West said the waste would be dumped into a dump popper to
maintain cleanliness and described the pit as being a stainless
steel lining with an oscillating, hand -type converter which moved
the waste to an inclined rubber conveyer belt. The conveyer belt
moved the waste to a shredder with the capacity to produce 66
tons per hour, reducing the size of the waste to 5 inches or
less. Then the waste would come down a shute and up to another
conveyer belt into a second shredder with the hammers set closer
together to regrind the waste to an ideal size for composting.
3/16/87
3 /yo
Mr. West said after coming out of the second grinder, aromatic
bacteria would be spread onto the waste to stop the smell and to
assure that decomposing would be more accurate. He said only a
few items such as a large refrigerates, washer or dryer would be
rejected at the bottom of the pit and would be picked up with a
cherry picker with the scraps sold to a local scrap dealer. He
said the rejected waste could be cut up and ground because the
bacteria in the metal served as valuable fertilizer for soil.
Mr. West said after the waste had been covered with aromatic
bacteria, it would go through a shute and into a hopper which
loads the waste onto trucks. The trucks would take the waste to
the composting room and pile it into wind groves, which are long
piles 12 feet high, 16 feet at the base and a repose angle of 45
degrees. He said decomposing waste would remain in the building
for 21 days and each day probes were stuck into the pile to check
for moisture and temperature content. He said the temperature of
the piles rose up to 170 degrees fahrenheit, which is a form of
pasturization and the heat was caused by bacteria. He said once
the degrees lowered, a pile turner ran through the waste and
blended the waste with waste compiled 2 weeks earlier or later
and, after the 21 day period, the waste would be created into
fertilizer. He said the waste would be put onto another
conveyer belt and into another grinder with closer hammers to
reduce the size of the waste to 1/4 inch in size, which would
still be too big; therefore, the waste would go up another
conveyer belt to a vibrating, cascading screen. He said by
changing screens different size fertilizer could be produced
with the waste going into bags or bulk. He said the buildings
would be buffered looking and completely enclosed.
Mayor Hart asked City Manager Kelly if a figure for home garbage
waste had been submitted and Mr. Kelly replied no.
Walter Falck, Member of the Broward League of Cities, said when
he was Mayor of Tamarac, he had been shown the burning process 41
and a Resolution had been passed; however, there had not been any
action on the process because the County would not approve the
burning system. He said ten years later, the County wanted to
use the process. He said the City had incidents with sludge and
the facility on Copans Road was at its maximum capacity,
therefore, needed additional land had been built.
Mr. Falck said the League felt an Interlocal Agreement had been
made and the technology and site selections would not be of the
Leagues' concern. He said the League consulted Agri --Post and saw
a presentation by the Company explaining the compost system.
After investigating Agra. -Post, the League found no plants in
operation since the plant in Jamacia had been closed. He said
the League located a composting plant in the Netherlands and
England and arrangements were made to go to the England plant for
observation. Then, 10 days before the date, there had been a
call saying the plant was not working. He said within the last
six months, the Netherlands plant has been closed, therefore,
compost had nothing to offer. He said he has visited the plants
for mass burning and proof that the plants work and have been
operating for some time, had been evident.
Mayor Hart asked Mr. Falck what type of waste disposal the League
would recommend and Mr. Falck said the League preferred mass
burning because of the factual evidence of operation. 9
C/M Stein said the cost for operating fees needed to be
negotiated further before signing the contract because he did not
feel it was fair for a time limit to be given by the County. He
said if the rest of the Cities did not go with the contract, the
rates could be higher. He said he would prefer all the tonnage
weighed, paying only for that weight.
4 3/16/87
Mr. Falck said there would be no way to know the tonnage of every
City because 5 years from this date, the cost could change. He
said it took 5 years to get the necessary approvals and papers
for the mass burning system and to decide to change to another
system could take years.
V/M Stelzer asked if the profit for the Companies could be
controlled and how many Cities have signed up for the mass
burning system.
IF Mr. Henderson replied to the question of the Cities by saying
Lauderhill, N. Lauderdale, Margate, Lighthouse Point, plus
uni.nceiporated areas had signed the contract and several other
Cities had passed an Ordinance on first reading. He said the
City Attorney would be responsible for any stipulations of the
Ordinance.
Mr. Henderson said while working with the League of Cities, since
June, 1984, the County Commission approved mass burning and the
package had been in process and there could be no way to delay
the County's deadline of March 31 for all the contracts to be
signed.
V/M Stelzer asked if there would be any way to control the
profits made by the Companies.
Mr. Henderson said there were signed contracts, which have been
supplied to City Manager Kelly and City Attorney Applegate, that
had the service fees that would be paid by the Companies and the
fees were figured from a net tipping fee basis and by combining
the revenues of the project and all the expense of the project.
He said a bid proposal had been requested by these Companies for
the net difference and the Companies submitted bids from their
level of profit based on the plant being built and how efficient
they would run the plant. He said it would be impossible to give
a profit figure on the Companies.
V/M Stelzer asked if the people of the City requested to see the
net profit of the Companies, would it be available and Mr.
Henderson replied there were bid proposals that had been
submitted and they were committed to follow.
V/M Stelzer asked what Hollywood, Ft. Lauderdale and Sunrise
decided to do and Mr. Henderson said Sunrise had not done
anything, Ft. Lauderdale had a Workshop Meeting last week and
wanted to review the contract further. He said Fort Lauderdale
anticipated going along with the contract, and Hollywood wanted
to take 35 to 45 days to look at the contract. He said a package
had been put together that provided the service to the Cities at
a reasonable cost on a guaranteed basis for 20 years.
V/M Stelzer asked how much longer Waste Management could take the
garbage and dump it and Mr. Henderson replied in 1994-95 there
would be a problem with finding land for the landfill.
V/M Stelzer asked if the City decided not to sign the contract at
this time and decided to join the system in five to ten years,
how much would the retroactive monthly service be.
Mr. Henderson said the City could join at any time, however, the
City would be forced to go to a facility that would best fit
their-tonnageinstead of the facility of their choice, which could
amount to an enormous amount of cost for transporting fees. He
said the Research Recovery Board would be reevaluating the
proposal in 2 to 3 months and, if there were not enough Cities to
join the contract to justify the plans, there could be a scaling
or a cut back on the facilities.
5 3/16/87
/yo
Mayor Hart said he received several requests from other Cities to
delay a decision on the date of March 31. He asked Mr. Henderson
if there could be an extended date for the system and Mr.
Henderson answered the County Commission said there would be no
extensions given.
Mayor Hart asked what would happen if only 5% of the Cities
signed the contract by March 31 and Mr. Henderson said the County
would have to decide if the project should be continued or if the
project should be scaled. 41
Mayor Hart asked what the average family tonnage would be per year
for residential and Mr. Henderson said it would depend on the
area.
Mayor Hart asked when the system would be in operation and Mr.
Henderson replied 1990. Mayor Hart said while looking at the
contract he had concerns with the clause stating there could be
an increase in fees if there needed to be additional space and
equipment for the project.
Mr. Henderson said if there came a point where there needed to
be additional room for waste and the Cities did not want to
expand the system, the system would cut back the acceptance of
waste.
C/M Stein said on that point, the Cities that were already built
out would not care if the system needed to be expanded and Mr.
Henderson said that had been one of the reasons the County
Commission wanted a member from each City to be on the Advisory
Board.
Jon Henning, City Attorney for the City of Sunrise, said Sunrise
had not decided on the system because the biggest problem they
were having had been how they would dispense the tipping fees to
the Residents. 4
Mayor Hart asked what the cost would be charged to the Cities and
Mr. Henderson answered $55.00.
V/M Stelzer asked Jon Henning if Sunrise would benefit by holding
their decision for 90 days and Mr. Henning said the benefit would
be to get further education on the system. He said he did not
expect an extension from the County and the concerns should not
be on the operations but on the controlling of the fees.
C/M Stein said the fees had not been decided and they could vary.
He said if there was not another alternative, then before signing
the contract, Council should completely understand what they were
signing.
Mr. Henderson said the Advisory Board that would be created by
the City members would be the deciding party and would set the
rates and plan the operations, not the County.
Ed West, President of Agri -Post, Inc., said there was another
alternative and the statement that there had been an
investigation of his Company was false. He said Council could
not get an education on the different systems in one day and
suggested Council look into other alternatives before signing the
contract. He said one composting plant should be placed in a IL
community to see if it would be good for the future or the
expanding Cities.
Millan Knor, Governing Program Director of Hoyle, Tanner & Assoc.,
Inc., said in 1970, the City of Fort Lauderdale had 2
incinerators that were closed down because of the Clean Air Act
and Broward County has grown since that time.
3/16/87
6 /Yo
r
f
11
Mr. Knor said the landfill space was becoming very scarce and,
since the County took charge in 1982, the system of mass burning
was a very complicated process. He said there have been sites
already formed for the systems and, if a City decided not to join
the County, they would have a tremendous problem of joining the
County later because of costs.
With no further discussion, Mayor Hart adjourned the meeting.
CAROL E. BARBUTO
CITY CLERK
This public document was promulgated at a cost of �160.20 or
$4.45 per copy to inform the general public and public officers
and employees about recent opinions and considerations by the
City Council of the City of Tamarac.
3/16/87
/yo
VA
I