- Good morning, I'd like to call the Public Utility Board meeting of Monday, October 28th,
2024 to order. We'll start out recognizing any public comments. Are there any public comments,
comments from the public? There's none. We'll move on to the regular meeting. That is part of the
regular meeting, excuse me. Two, there are no items on the consent agenda, so we'll go straight
into the items for individual consideration. Item A is the consider approval of the October 14th,
2024 minutes. Are there any changes or discussion? If not, we'll entertain them. Go ahead, I'm sorry.
- So I do have to say, I like the new format of the minutes. I think there's a lot more detail in
there. It talks about the discussion a little bit more, and with that, I'd move approval of the
minutes. - We have a motion for Mr. Taylor. I entertain a second. - Second. - We have a
second for Mr. Rayner. All those in favor, please say aye. - Aye. - It passes unanimously. Item B,
PUB 24-193, this is consider recommending an adoption of an ordinance to the City of
Denton to Texas Home Rule Corporation, authorizing the manager to execute a contract with HM and MFLTD.
Doing business is muckaroo in fouls. - Good morning. Gio Pignato, project manager,
Capital Projects. I'm here to present again the Denton Solid Weight Fleet Shop. I want to go to
the project overview. This is our new, yes, sir? - I'd like you to get a little more alignment with
the microphone. I'm having a little trouble hearing you. - What about now? - Say again. - Yes,
what about now? - Better. Thank you. - Okay. The project overview, this is a new facility
that will help alleviate the main fleet shop at 804 Texas Street, and it will reduce the travel
time between the solid waste and the landfill, which is about 10 miles round trip.
The project schedule will stay the same. It's one year during construction, the construction phase.
- Giovanni, excuse me, can you make that full screen if you're able to? - Let me see how I do that.
Can we clear it in the bigger? The project schedule, it will stay the same. It's one year
during construction phase. The recommendation, the staff recommend the contract with muckaroo in fouls.
And we took your question last time, and we went to operation, and
some stakeholders, and they are here if you have more questions.
- Okay. Would anybody like to start out with any questions? - Yes. I'm looking at the pricing
evaluation sheet, and it would appear that the selected contractor is not the lowest by a pretty
good margin. I see on your point scale that they did rate slightly higher. I'm curious how much of
a weighting factor the points are over the overall cost of the project from the bid standpoint.
- I will have my supervisor for that question. - Okay.
Billy, I was just trying to beat you to the punch on this. - I'm going to let you guys go first.
- Good morning board members. Seth Garcia, deputy director of capital projects. So for this one,
price is 40%. Qualifications are 60%. - Well, I did notice a reasonably substantial
spread in the pricing from low to high of a million dollars on a less than 10 million dollar
project. - Yes, sir. - So it just left me wondering if there is a little more to it than just the
scoring process. - Yeah. Again, I think some of its familiarity with this kind of building,
again, the two lowest bids did not show significant experience with any kind of fleet shop,
which led to a deduct in points on their proposal side. And then again, anytime you don't have the
experience, we worry about the cost factors and making sure they have all items of the scope
included in their bid. Again, that's where the top two, we were a little more comfortable with
where those numbers came in at. Still overall, compared to our engineer's estimate, we were about
a million dollars underneath what our engineer thought the OPCC was going to be. - So within the
initial budget estimate, we were still well within. - Correct. Yeah, I think we're in between one and
1.2 million in savings right now. - Okay. Well, I have no further questions. - All right. - Thank you.
- Mr. Rayner, Mr. Taylor, any questions? - And I will say, we do have Tom Grammer here with Fleet
to address some of those questions that you guys had earlier about contract savings or the offsetting
of 804. We want him to come up and speak to that just a little bit, if that would help. - Would that be, yes, I like that. - Yeah.
- Good morning, everybody. Tom Grammer, Director of Facilities and Fleet. So this fleet shop here is going to
help alleviate not only the work at 804 Texas Street, find efficiencies in travel, but give our staff
members the applicable working conditions that they do not have currently. Right now, we have five
technicians servicing the solid waste fleet and we only have two bays. A lot of the technicians are
working in the parking lot and in the weather, whether it be hot, cold, raining, and indifferent.
So what this shop does is it provides the necessary grounds to do the work, which through our fleet
study says if you can have the proper facilities and tools, you will be more efficient as an
operation. So by building this facility and giving the technicians the appropriate space to work in,
we should be able to turn around a better uptime for solid waste and overall create a better and
more efficient fleet for them to operate with. - So how many bays will this building have then?
- Six, sir. - Six. - Yep. - Currently, how much work are the technicians having to do remote
outside the building and parking lot? - Well, we only have two bays and there's five technicians, so
I think the math on that would be... - 60%? - 60%. - How much of that outside work do they
have to actually travel to a vehicle that is broken down or in need of service outside the
facility? - Right. So for the most part, any vehicle that breaks down is towed to us. There's
a parking lot outside of the facility where the vehicles are stored waiting for repairs or being
repaired right outside of the doors. - Thank you. - Of course. - Do you know how much money we're
going to save by building our own facility? - It's hard to say. I know that our operational
efficiency will increase and therefore turn into a dollar saved by downtime. We spend hundreds of
thousands of dollars on these vehicles and every minute that they're sitting in the parking lot
broken and unable to be repaired, there's money lost through depreciation and then the availability
to pick up trash. So by creating the space and bringing these vehicles in and increasing our
uptime, we will see a savings on the backside of that. It's hard to say the dollar amount currently.
- So you did an analysis of the way that it's being done now outside repairs and such versus
having it inside and what were your numbers then? - Yeah, so we had an operational study conducted
in fleet, I think it was 2020, and they noted that when you do not have the appropriate equipment or
the space, you lose operational efficiency as technicians, which then turns into more downtime
because we can't get the vehicles inside. So by giving a technician each technician their own bay,
bringing them in from the elements, having all the appropriate space will increase our technician
efficiency. Could be 20, 30, 60 percent, right? If we have five technicians and three of them
are working outside, just bringing them inside to have those bays and tools available will increase
the capacity of our shop out there. - And will we be needing to hire any more technicians
since we have six bays now? - Not with the current facility, but as the city grows and expands into
the future, we will need additional technicians. More trucks you add to the fleet, the more work
will be needed, but this facility is not requiring any additional FTEs. - And do you have it designed
where it can be expanded? - Yes. - Okay, thank you. - Of course.
- Well, since you bring that up, I'm looking at the artists or the architects rendition of the building
and I see three bays. I'm assuming they're opposed since you have six. - Yes, sir. - So how can the
building be expanded? I'm just looking at the drawing. I'm just asking to expand it out. - So
when we were looking at the floor plan here and the site layout, we orientated the building a lot
where if there's ever a need to expand the facility, we're able to add on to the end of the building.
One side has the administrative spaces, which will always be fixed. The other end is just the
end of the bay doors, right, under the bay wall. So you can continue to build out on that if necessary.
- All right, so the bays can be expanded outward parallel to the existing bays. - Correct. Yeah, so
we would continue moving on towards this direction. - Okay, just looking at the building,
it was very symmetrical, so it can be expanded. Thank you. - Of course. - What is...
Jumped out and ran across over here just a second. Oh, the repair ratio, in other words,
what is an average month as to truck repairs that would be needed for that facility? - I can grab
that information for you, sir. - I'm just thinking, and I know you keep the garbage trucks in good
shape and such, but I'm just wondering, you know, are we looking at an average of let's say three or
four because of the amount of stress you put on those vehicles and such that you normally go in
there a month or what? - Well, every vehicle has a preventative maintenance schedule, and we see them
three to four times a year guaranteed just for oil changes, brake chops, things of that nature.
Then all of the other repairs that are unforeseen, if there's a, if the operators run into a curb and
break something, or if a hydraulic line snaps and we have to replace it outside the normal PM
schedule, we often see trucks in more than their PM schedule for repairs in that nature. - Yeah,
I would think so, yeah. - Okay, Mr. Rabak. - So in general terms, just in a broad brush of things,
how much do we spend on vehicle maintenance a year? - For solid waste? - For solid waste for this
fleet that you manage? - I don't know the number right now. Brian may have the number? No? Okay,
so we can get that number to you. I have the overall fleet numbers. - If it's not vitally important,
I think you need the building. I'll look for it. I'm just curious. So for instance, you're spending
a million dollars or two million dollars a year. If you're 10% more efficient, then that's a savings
of a hundred or $200,000. I was just trying to think of some beneficial way to frame this,
but that's fine. Thank you very much. You don't need to get back to us with that. I was just
curiosity. Thank you. - So just to follow up, you said you have the overall fleet number of kind of
annual fleet maintenance cost? - Yeah. So the fleet operation runs $17 million annually,
and that's to service all vehicles throughout the city, general fund, and utilities.
- And so it looks like solid waste, I'm reading the other report that you put together for this
meeting, is 114 vehicles, and that's about almost 20%, 18% of the total fleet? - Yes. - And they're
probably very high mile vehicles? - Not high mileage, but definitely they're heavy duty
application. They get used. - Maybe high hours. They're driven eight hours a day or something like
that. Thank you. - Of course. - Okay. So I mean, I think the point of the conversation was, I mean,
I used to buy a lot of things and propose a lot of capital expenditures, and I had to prove why they
were going to be valuable to the company that I worked for, and I didn't get to build them if I
couldn't prove there was a use, and I mean, you were spending, you know, nine, nine and a half
million dollars here, a million dollars more than the lower bidder, so I mean, there's obviously a
million dollars there that is really unaccounted for. I mean, you've put it in here, you want to
use these guys because they've experienced building this kind of building, which sounds like a pretty
simple, what is it, tilt wall? - It is tilt wall construction. - Yeah, tilt wall construction is pretty
vanilla, so I bet you do, but you know, it would have been nice. We asked all these questions.
I mean, they were out there, and I don't think anybody doesn't support you in this
venture, but sure would be nice to know why and to be able to explain to people, hey, we're building
this because here's what it's going to save us in the long run, and we don't really have that
information. I mean, do we? I mean, am I missing it? - We have the information, sir. I can go collect
that and provide it to the board. What we're really gaining here is the capacity to service the vehicles,
which that will keep them on the road longer, and then the end user experience will be better. We
won't miss trash collections. We won't miss pickups. That's really what it comes down to. Now,
the dollar amount of what we're saving, I can go generate that number for you, but we ask what the
value is. The value is being able to service the citizens in a stronger capacity. - I think, yeah,
I think we get that. I don't think that's an issue at all. I really don't. Yes, Mr. Ryback,
you want to follow up with that? - I do want to follow up with that. I think the point he's trying
to make is be very helpful if you have this information before you go to council. - Of course.
Or maybe not, but anyway. Okay, any further discussion? If not, I'll entertain a motion.
- Moves. So moved to approve. - Mr. Ryback has made a motion to approve. Is there a second?
- Second. - Mr. Taylor has made the second. All those in favor, please say aye.
- Aye. Any opposed, sign the same. All right, passes unanimously. Thank you, sir. - Thank you.
- All right, we've got individual item C, PUB 24-224, consider recommending adoption
of an ordinance of the city of Gittin, establishing the schedule of rates for electric service.
Are we staying here for this? Okay. - Yes, this is all open attention. - Gotcha.
- Good morning, PUB and members of the board, Vispopentavong, ADF Finance,
and here to present the ECA adjustment and transmission cost recovery factor.
Looking at this chart, basically, it provides two scenarios, right? The first scenario is really
maintaining the ECA at its current rate. And basically, the second scenario to the right is
reducing the ECA down from the current rate. So if you look at the current rate, if we leave it as is,
in March of 2025, our over and under would be around $7.2 million. If we adjust it downwards,
the rate would be, I mean, that actual balance would be around $4 million. So, and our original
forecast back in July for the year end for September, we were thinking would it be under
recovering by $2.8 million, but actually, we actually over recovered by $2.5 million on the ECA.
So now this slide, we discussed the TCRF. The TCRF is the transmission cost recovery factor.
So on the left side is really maintaining the rates as is. So by September 2025,
we would actually be under collecting or under recovering by close to $5.8 million.
If we adjust our rate to the new rate, which will be on the next slide,
we would be around $50,000 over collecting or right on getting close to zero. And
with this methodology, we're hoping to get as close as possible to zero.
So this slide just shows again what our current rate is for the ECA, which 0.0515,
and our proposed rate is 0.0416. And on the TCRF, this is for all the different
customer class within the TCRF rate. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you proposing to lower
rates? Yes. Can you put an advertisement out there on a billboard? Because that's the only
advertisement we're going to get. Okay. That's fine.
And let me just interrupt. So just to be clear, right, so the proposal that this is talking about
is to lower the ECA, but we're increasing the TCRF. The net impact of that will be a reduction. I just
want to be clear with the board. And just remember the TCRF, we reinstated that in April, right? And
so we've not made any adjustments to TCRF until now. And the plan, the hope is that we would do
that on an annual basis, not necessarily quarterly basis, but I just want to give you that additional
context. Yep. No worries. Sorry. Oh, no. And back to the TCRF. So the residential and the GS small
would go from 0.0135 to 0.0176. The GS medium would go from $3.85 to $5.02, and the GS large
would go from $5.34 to $6.95. So here is kind of the picture of the monthly bill. So overall,
as you can see for the four different classes of rate payers and the ECA and the TCRF combined,
it's a reduction of 1% for the overall bill. Just a question for myself. The GS small versus
medium large, is that how much power is being demanded, or are we talking about the size of
the footprint? I'm just curious. It would be the demand, because that's hard. So give me, if I may,
an average, let's say, I would think the large would be like universities, things like that. I
mean, this would be large, Peterbilt and all. Medium, would that be like a 50,000 square foot
strip center? Yeah, Walmart. I'm just trying so I can picture that. And then small would be like
your 10,000 square foot strip center. Convenience store. Yes, things along that line. Mom and pop
shops, too. Okay. Thank you very much. Questions? I have a few questions. So could we return to the
slide on the ECA, the chart slide? So in the TCRF, you have that calculated out through the end of
fiscal year, through summer of next year, through Q3 of next year. And in the past, we've experienced
the highest energy prices, the most outlay by DME, the highest load, all that stuff, is Q3 calendar.
This forecast ends in March. Is the thinking that we're going to have kind of a seasonal
rate we'll set like in the fall, we'll set like a winter rate, and then we'll look at the forecast
for summer energy, and we'll set kind of a summer rate? So do we expect to have an up-down movement?
Or do we need to extend this forecast out to the end of the fiscal year? So when we look at this
internally, we certainly look at it for a ninth month period at a time, right? And so one of the
things that we had communicated to the board and also to the council is that now that we've kind of
almost gone a year of really kind of looking at this calculation, the goal is to try to keep things
pretty even, right? So even at the proposed 462, if I look at where do we think, based on the current
forecast, where we're going to be, we'll be slightly above that policy limitation. We'll be,
I think the number I have is about 5.5 million. So while we could potentially make an additional
reduction here, the fact of the matter is, the closer we get to that projection, the more we'll
know. So next quarter, if we come back, and if the projections are still true, we may very well look
at another reduction, right? But I think the ultimate goal is to try to have the ECA stay
pretty stable throughout the year so that we're not having these peaks and valleys, and it gives a lot
more certainty to our customers. Okay, and I also noticed, so is this a fund balance of about 4
million, or is this a fund overage of about 4 million? It's a fund overage, so it's a separate
account that we're keeping, and that balance in that account cannot go less than 5 million dollars,
it cannot go above 5 million, and that's the test that we look at when we're looking at
at this quarterly review. So less than negative 5 million? Yeah, it can go down as much as
negative 5 million. And so the target is zero? Yeah, the problem is if you make this go all the
way down to negative 5 million, then next quarter we'll come back, we're gonna have to bump it up
again, and one of the things that we keep hearing from customers is we understand you gotta raise
rates, but when you do a 20% rate increase all at once, that's what we're trying to avoid here.
When we listen to our customers and try to make sure that we cut as much of that variance as
possible. Yeah, and that's my concern with not showing summer. We expect summer prices to be
on average about twice as high for energy as the rest of the year, so, and, you know, we had
25, 20, it's almost 30 million dollar kind of price shock in the last year and a half, so I want to
make sure we're, the board understands that, you know, we've got that high risk period kind of in
the summer, and that we can see it, you know, just even knowing where we're going to enter
summer at, you know, and maybe 4 million's enough. I just worry if we had another, you know, I can't
remember the exact number, but 20 or 25 million dollar unexpected energy cost. That's, and Mr.
Taylor, I mean, we certainly looked at that scenario. The scenario that we looked at was,
what if we kept the ECA the way it's at, at that rate, but I think based on our current forecast,
we're going to show a huge, potentially a huge increase if our power forecast is accurate, right,
and so, so then you're going to have to come back and make an even a bigger reduction, right, and so,
so we thought kind of stair stepping this might be kind of hedging our bets a little bit to make
sure that we cut, cut those huge swings and how they impact our customers. Yeah, definitely, I
definitely agree with that kind of rate stability. I just want to make sure that we're looking far
enough out to keep the rate stable through, through next summer. I also, I wish we had a little more
information. I know some of this is competitive, but I wish we had a little more information on
kind of the source of the change in the forecast. There's an old joke about economists, like an
economist will give you their predictions for what's going to happen next year, and you have
them back next year, and they'll give you all the reasons why what they said would happen didn't
happen. You know, a little bit of that where, you know, like is this, we're, we did a little better
than perhaps expected because maybe loads were lower or maybe our PPA's output was higher or,
you know, hedge price, you know, long-term hedge prices were lower than forecast or the deck did
well. Just kind of very simple, like we were looking at this and it, and we had kind of wins
here and losses here, and the net was, you know, to our benefit or to our, you know, deck tournament.
Yeah, and we could certainly do that if the board would like that. If you remember, you know,
the council didn't fully delegate to the board's decision, but certainly you're looking at this
on an individual consideration basis, the council will look at this on a consent agenda basis,
right? So if there's additional information, whether if it's, you know, certainly if it's
competitive, we can always propose a closed session and go through those numbers. I can tell you,
we went through all of those different scenarios internally to get to where we are, and so it would
not be a big lift for us to do the same thing here with the board. It'll just take a little
bit more time, but we can certainly do that if that's your desire. Yeah, so I think if next
quarter, just one slide on kind of the general trends of maybe the four biggest factors that are
affecting ECA, RECA. Now on the TCRF, I did have a question, I think it's two slides, like one more
slide. On this one, are those demand charges on the medium and large, are they for CP or are they
like an NCP demand? Do you all know what the... Yeah, so the basis is what their usage was the prior
year. I'm just wondering if that's that summer coincident peak or if it's just a general...
Just a general, yeah, just general. Did you say historical? Well, demand always looks back,
but that's 12 months. Yeah, so I was just trying to... I believe our transmission cost of service
charges are based on our four CP contribution, right? That's correct, that's correct. So our
contribution is based on that four CP is calculated every year. Now the way that we've... So the total
estimated cost that we're trying to recover that we're going to be paying out is about $30 million.
We get the annual matrix, I think it's in March, and so normally there's a little bit of a delay,
and then there's adjustments throughout the year that change that a little bit. So in our estimation,
we've included kind of a historical look at how much has come in after the matrix has been released,
and that's how we get to the $30 million, and of course then we're just backing into for each
customer what that would be. Right, and I guess one last question. Our largest customer
have specific contracts on... Do those demand charges change with these changes or are those
fixed by that contract? So in that contract, we've stipulated that they are fully responsible for any
incremental increase to our transmission costs as a result of their usage. And so they're not
necessarily paying this KVA charge, they're just paying a calculation of exactly their contribution.
Correct. All right, yeah, I think in general this is good news that rates are going down,
you know, energy rates going down almost 10% here, and the transmission cost recovery is
by a percentage rate is going up like 30%, but that's only like 0.4 cents, so not terrible. I
think the, you know, we have to cover our transmission cost of service, so it's something
we just, we can't avoid. Those are all my comments. Okay, yeah. I like the idea of us getting a kind
of reassessment in another quarter or so, not to hold up your process and moving forward with that,
but I'm comfortable that you still have a pretty good cushion calculating all this out so that if
there are some unforeseen activities that you'll still be in pretty good shape. So, but I like the
idea of getting just kind of a quick review and update at the end of the quarter. Thank you.
Thanks, guys. Yeah, good idea. Okay.
Was there any more on that? Got another one, David? I'm ready to move approval on the second.
Okay, we have a motion from Mr. Taylor and a second from Mr. Rybak.
She has asked me to announce these things, so that's why I'm being a little more diligent today.
All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. All right.
We have a work session. Oh, I'm sorry, skipped page. Management reports, Tony.
So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, so we have a few items here for you. We had a follow-up memo
to you on electric vehicle information. I think, Mr. Taylor, you had requested that about a year
ago, and Tom's here if you have any additional questions on that. And then we also have a follow-up
from finance on the utility system revenue bonds that were issued for the water department. So,
if you have any questions for Tom or Jessica, they are both here and happy to walk you through
any questions you have on those two memos. We have one question on the electric vehicle comparison.
Good morning. So, I see you have a good bullet point list of kind of benefits and experiences.
I was hoping for kind of like, I think I'm a solid waste question, like maybe number of work
orders or hours of work order maintenance, preventative maintenance and unexpected or
whatever the non-preventative maintenance is called. Yeah. Are you seeing higher or lower
maintenance effort on the light vehicles? Yeah, absolutely. So, when it comes to electric
vehicle light duty applications, we see initial purchase prices that are higher than internal
combustion engines. However, over the period of life cycle, we do see up to 30 percent of reduced
preventative maintenance and repair needs of that vehicle, which generate the cost value. So,
initial purchase price, you know, but you get some efficiency by not seeing it in the shop as
frequent. Of course, they don't need oil changes. They have less mechanical moving parts. So,
we do see a reduction in maintenance costs through the life cycle of the vehicles. Thank you. Of
course. Yeah, that would have been, you put that on here. That's a lot easier for us to remember.
So, what about the replacement of battery packs? So far, none of our vehicles that we have in the
fleet require that. So, we don't have any experience on the replacement of battery packs. Ideally,
with our turnover time of vehicles, when we see them at the end of their life cycle, we would be
auctioning them off before we have any of those catastrophic repairs. So, the city's plan is not
to replace the battery packs, but to replace the vehicle. Well, through our fleet model currently,
we obviously do not want to keep vehicles 10, 15 years, right? That provides higher maintenance
costs the longer we own the vehicle. These battery packs seem to be lasting 10 years before we see
any issues with them in the marketplace, not fleet specifically. So, ideally, through our current
model that we have where we're attempting to turn over vehicles at a faster rate to reduce long-term
maintenance costs, we shouldn't see any of those unless it's a warranty repair or an anomaly. So,
your daily mileage is low enough that you don't reach the threshold of the battery cycles then?
It all depends on the use. Some departments may, some not. Right now, we don't see that as being a
problem. The light duty electric applications are used locally and in town, so we don't see a heavy
duty cycle in the batteries. The reason I ask the question is I have a couple friends who bought
hybrids or electric vehicles, and they drive them regularly to and from work and so on and so forth,
and they run about four and a half to five years and poof, battery. Yes, I believe one of our oldest
vehicles is a 2017 or 19 in that fleet, and we haven't had any concerns with that vehicle as of
now. Okay, well as long as we're not replacing the battery packs, I guess we don't have the cost to
worry about. Thank you. Correct, yes sir. So, I was wondering if this dovetails into the electric
stations. Six I think we were looking at at one time. Once those are fully in operation, I'm assuming
well we've got two now or how many do we, do you know? I think we have six or seven. I believe
it's in the, it should be in the memo. I missed it, that's why I'm asking. But anyway, with that
being the case, that will help you with some of the information that we've been talking about,
would it not? It would. Okay, but the six, I didn't realize that the six, I missed it, but the
six locations have already been identified. Yes, we have through our fleet purchasing process as an
electric vehicle is brought into the fleet, the question is asked to the user, do you have adequate
charging at the facility that you're going to be parking this unit? Most of the time, it's just a
level one that's required. We don't see the demand need for a level two charger for the capacity of
the batteries, so we're able to put an external plug on the facility so that we can use a level
one charger. Only a few locations require a level two. It's those high use areas. I believe Solid
Waste has a couple of them. DME may have one. Fleet has one, obviously, so we can charge faster
so we can get that vehicle back out on the road. But for the most part, we see the level ones as
the true need and we can provide that at the time of vehicle purchase. Thank you. Of course.
So you, I think last year when we approved one level three charger, like a fast charger,
has that one been constructed yet? Was that for the fire department? It was just, it was a single
blanket item that was one level three charger, several level two chargers. It was the six million
dollar. Yeah, multi-year contract. Yeah. I don't know, so I don't know if the fast charger's been
built yet. I was just curious. I'm unaware of that. Steve Austin, Bionic Man. Yeah, we'll have to go
back and take a look at that, Mr. Taylor, but I know we had, the city had submitted an application
for a DC charger and level two chargers and we did not obtain that. And so then we ended up installing,
I think, two level two chargers at Development Services. So that I'm aware of, I don't know if
we have a DC charger, but let's go back and take a look at that and we'll get back with you.
Okay, everybody's good. All right. Thank you. So Mr. Chair, no other updates on the future agenda
or new business. So if there's certainly something that you'd like to see, please let us know.
We will try to schedule and start, you know, having a little more formality for when we'll
come back to you on a quarterly basis with the ECA and we'll start putting that on the calendar
that way you know when that's going to happen. Mr. Ryback. I did have a quick question on the
revenue bonds. Good morning, maybe. Jessica Williams, Chief Financial Officer. Yes, thank you.
Just a quick question. I noticed in the comments that the beneficial rate we're receiving for the
bonds on that saved us about a million dollars. So what are we currently paying for revenue bonds
as far as interest in the general market? So when we were last in the market, we were looking at
about a 4.8% with the Texas Water Development Board. We were able to secure 3.43 over 30 years,
which is a fantastic rate right now. It also includes a 14% subsidy that the Texas Water
Development Board gives to cities who are doing these projects that are on the state water plan.
I'm sorry, I missed something about the 14%, I'm sorry. The 14% is a subsidy that Texas Water
Development Board assigns to the projects that are on the state water development plan. Oh, I got you.
So if we're doing the project, but the greater plan is that our project benefits everyone else,
then there is some subsidy there. Well, that was my question. I was just curious. So a million
dollars. Okay. So what's the interest rates close to five? So that makes perfectly good sense. Thank
you. Yes. Thank you for having that answer quickly. All right. I have something I would like to add to
the new business action items. We had the issue come up with the water treatment plants with the
filters, one failing and then another one, and they got a new maintenance plan and change to a
different media from the sand of the activated granular charcoal. And I would like to get some
feedback on that and what the plan is and when it will be implemented and how it will be carried out
since obviously the water restrictions affected us all. Yes, sir. We'll communicate that to the
water department. Thanks. Mr. Anybody else got any more? Okay. Looks like we are going to move
on to concluding items, which is our work session. Item A, PUB 24-223, receive a report,
hold a discussion of the city of Denton's cart tagging program and its results, which has reduced
contamination and curbside recycling over the past four years. All right. We ready? Yeah. All
right. Well, good morning. My name is Brandy Neal. I'm the administration manager for solid waste and
recycling. I'm here to provide an update and overview and results for our cart tagging program.
So a little bit of the backstory or the problem in this case, residential curbside recycling
contamination reached a high of 68% in fiscal year 2021. With those high contamination rates
comes low quality of materials that are being sent to our MRF or your material recovery facility,
which is going to affect the value of the commodity being sold. So in turn, we're going
to get less revenue in the solid waste enterprise. And a portion of that goes straight back into the
residential recycling education and outreach program. We also are at a potential violation of
a contract with our MRF. So not only do we outline in the contract what items can and
cannot be recycled. We also outline a certain percentage of contamination that should be
delivered, which is 15%. So one five. So looking at the contamination rates for the entire year,
kind of where we started, you can see in October of 2020, we're at 64%. You can see that it started
to rise 64, 67. And we did reach that peak of 68% in January of 2021. You can see from there that
there's a little bit of a downfall. So there was a couple of things that we put into place to help
fight that contamination and cart tagging being one of those. So what is contamination? This is
a great question. A lot of people just assume it's trash, and that is not always the case. Sometimes
it is just general trash. But a lot of times it's a lot of different things. So non-program
materials being one of those. So you can see here bulleted, we have metal, plastic film, flexible
plastic, and styrofoam. So all of these things are recyclable at their recycling facility,
not necessarily in the blue bin at your curb. So just thinking about metal, sometimes people
will put, we've seen trampolines make it into the blue bin because it is metal, and it can be
recycled, but it needs to go to a metal recycler. Same thing with plastic film. You've seen the
grocery bags. They all have the chasing arrows on there. It tells you to recycle them. They'll end
up in the blue bang. And again, those need to go back to the grocery store or to someone else that's
going to take those plastic films. So that's contamination. That is contamination. It's
considered contamination, along with flexible plastic. Flexible plastic is anything really. So
your bread packaging, your chip packaging, the air bubbles that come in your package are in your
boxes that are being delivered, your Amazon packaging. Go ahead. What if you pop them all?
If you pop them, there's still contamination. So also those blue and white Amazon packages that
you see, those are all considered contamination. Then we have also soiled recyclables, which could
be, most people think of pizza boxes, which pizza boxes are a little bit of a concern. Not necessarily
the grease, but people are leaving pizza in there and there are cups of marinara or ranch, those kind
of things. So that's the soiled recyclables that we're talking about. Bagged recyclables is a huge
challenge for us, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But if that goes to the MRF and it
is in a black bag, they're not able to see what is in that black bag. And for safety concerns,
they will not open it. So they don't know if there's needles in there, diapers, food waste,
or it's clean recyclables. Even if it's an opaque white bag, if they're not able to see through it,
unfortunately, that is considered contamination. Yes, sir. So when these materials are separated
out from the recycle stream, I assume they go to the landfill. Correct. So how many cubic yards or
tons of material is that typically in a year? I do not know that answer, but I can get it for you.
68% of them. Well, 60 at this time. Two years ago, 68% of the tons were considered trash.
I understand the percentage I'm asking about. For actuals. Yeah. Cubic yards of material or tons of
weight. We do tonnage, so I can get you some tonnage information. I presume you have it
somewhere. Yeah, we do. And then the last thing is donation items, which was what we would call
wish cycling. So this is the resident that has wonderful intentions. They may have an item that,
you know, isn't at the end of life and they want someone else to take it. However, they're under
the impression that maybe it's being sorted out when it's delivered to the MRF, which is not the
case. Unfortunately, it does end up at the back and goes to the landfill. So looking at a visual
representation of our contamination rates. So this is for residential. As a reminder, this is what it
looked like in January 2021. So this is all over Denton. So a lot of people say, not my neighborhood.
You know, we're excellent recyclers and you may be, but your neighbors may not be. But you can see
in this map here that if you zoom in really, really close, but everybody is red. So every single one
of the residential routes is over 50% or higher in contamination. Again, this is in January of 2021.
Yes, sir. Not to be paranoid, but how do you get that information? That's a great question. So Pratt
or MRF, when we deliver our material to them, they automatically call a contamination rate
and it's printed on a ticket. Each month they will send us that data. But how do you know it's
my neighborhood versus theirs? When they deliver it, they deliver it by route number. So these are
route specific. So you can see they're kind of in a cluster. And so every route is in that cluster,
but it doesn't pin down to a street or a house. Yeah, it's just a route and the routes consist of
1200 stops. So it's a pretty big route and there's about 10 recycling routes probably.
Yeah, about 10 recycling routes throughout the entire week. It's hard to see that. Is the darker
the spot, the more contamination? That's correct, yeah. The yellow is the 50% and then everything
greater than that yellow. So that kind of mauve pink and that bright red is just going higher and
higher. Is that the square area that's really yellow right there? Downtown, yes. So the businesses
around there are doing a good job of recycling. This is for residential and the businesses would
be considered commercial. But commercial valet does wonderful downtown. So talking about the
solution a little bit. So in June or July, I apologize, in 2021 a cart tagging program was
going to be implemented. So the goal was to educate the residents on what is accepted in the City of
Denton's program. So get out there, be on the street, have conversations with them directly,
clean their carts out with them if we needed to. It's going to reduce the contamination overall in
the blue bin and we're going to be able to identify the most contaminated items and then our audit
results are going to help drive our outreach program. So prior to the cart tagging program,
we had some residential education in place. So we worked very closely with environmental services.
They have a couple of engagement coordinators that help do our social media post. We also have a
monthly newsletter letter that was going out and the utility bills. There's always a recycling
message or some other services that we offer, whether it's yard waste or home chemical collections.
Then also meeting with the HOAs and going out to the residents and meeting them where they are
and having those conversations with them about what can go in their bin. Also at the curb,
our operators have been using a non-collection tag that's pictured here, this orange tag,
since the beginning of about 2019. Now this tag has everything on it. You can see it says your
cart is blocked by a vehicle, maybe your cart is less than four feet away from the object,
but you can see number four says that your cart is contaminated with trash. So it doesn't
necessarily tell them what the problem is, it just tells them that their cart is contaminated
and it does give them a brief description of what can go in the cart. Now this does present
a challenge with the operators. We are, I can't think of the word, I just lost my word, automated,
I apologize. And so the drivers are just driving from cart to cart, the arm's grabbing them,
so they're not necessarily lifting the lid and looking inside. So unless the contamination is
just sticking out, they're not going to see that. So our cart tagging program did begin in July.
We did get approval to hire some interns. So luckily we have two great colleges, three great
colleges here and lots of intern opportunity. So we brought some interns on. We were going to use
the PRAT data that is delivered to us monthly and we're going to really focus on our what we're
going to call worst first route. So we had to start somewhere and we were going to start with
the highest contaminated routes. We're going to use the existing infrastructure that we had,
so we already had some small fleet that we could use and we were going to be able to track our
progress. We had just recently implemented Rubicon, our smart routing system, so this is going to
give us an opportunity to talk directly to our drivers and so they would know which carts were
contaminated and which ones not to collect. And then we needed to go out and start lifting lids.
So just a quick overview. So again, we're going to target those highest contaminated routes first.
We're, as soon as we approach a container, we're actually going to examine the outside of the
container as well. So a lot of residents aren't aware, but if the container has a crack in the
side or some of them are missing lids completely, that's going to introduce water into our recycling
stream, which is a contaminant as well. But they can have those things replaced at no additional
charge. So we're going to put in a complimentary work order for them if we notice those things,
especially the lids that are missing or the bodies that are cracked. We're also going to
replace the educational sticker that's on top of the blue bin. So depending on the neighborhood,
you know, when their cart was delivered, that cart stays with the home, even as the residents
turn over. And so it fades when it's sitting outside. And so we do want to replace that
because the resident doesn't have an idea of what goes in the bin if they can't read that
educational sticker. So we go out and do that. Do you have a question?
Thank you. I'm intrigued on, so this blue bin is going to be their identification number that
I see there. That's going to be, that's going to be connected to a residence.
Correct.
Irregardless, let's say it's rental property and we have people coming in and out. So that
cart is going to stay there. Correct. Till it gets older, whatever. Exactly. And so if the,
let's say rental property, have a house that's been vacant for two, three months, is the owner
of that property then going to be paying a monthly fee for that blue container? As long as the
utilities are still on, then they will pay. So only, so the utilities, that is the triggering
mechanism. So if it's turned off, then it just, as you said, stays dormant until someone comes in.
Correct. Thank you.
Yeah. It's all utilities together. Okay. So we're going to replace the educational sticker to make
sure the resident knows exactly what goes in that bin. And then we're actually going to start to
open the lid and inspect the contents inside. So what does the process look like? So we open it,
we're going to take a quick glance. We're going to look inside. Our threshold is 15%. So as a
reminder, that is the target for us with Pratt as well. So that is our goal. If the contamination is
less than 15%, then we city staff are going to clean out the container for the resident. Now,
we only clean it out if the trash has not been collected, because we take that material and we
put it into their green bin. If it has been collected, unfortunately, we do have to leave
it behind and it will end up at the MRF, but 15% is their goal as well. So it's not going to,
you know, change our numbers too much. If it's above that threshold, and it's 15% or greater,
or depending on what the contaminant is, maybe it's something heavy that we can't lift out,
maybe it's a television, something that just massive and it takes up the entire cart,
or maybe it's food waste and it's all over everything and we can't clean it, then we will
have to give them a tag. So they are provided this yellow tag here just says recycling contamination
notice. Your blue cart is contaminated and it will not be collected. It does ask the resident
to clean the cart out and then it will be collected next week. You can see here also that it will tell
you exactly which items belong. Again, just cardboard, cartons, paper, bottles, tubs, and jugs,
those kind of things, but it doesn't necessarily describe what their problem is. Again, it's just
only telling them what goes in the cart. So that kind of got us thinking like we have a lot of work
to do here, right? So we need to do some program improvements. So we introduced three more tags into
the mix. So one of them being a notice tag, so that's the first one. So this is the tag that we
provide the resident when we clean the cart, because if they aren't there and they don't see
us doing it, they probably didn't even know we came by and removed any contaminants from their cart.
So the notice tag says your cart will still be collected, but we notice these items in your cart.
So the pictures that are on here are just items that when we're out doing the audits we've noticed
these were the biggest things. So you're seeing plastic bags, soil food containers, styrofoam,
things like that, and then there is an other section that we can really write on there exactly
what the concern is. And then also we are going to give them an oops tag. So this is going to go
with the yellow tag that you've seen in the prior screen. This is what tells them exactly what they
have done wrong. So not only just highlighting what goes in the cart, but now they know exactly
what doesn't go in the cart. So same images that you're seeing. The only thing new here is textiles,
so we will see some textiles show up in there, and some yard waste from time to time. And then we also
have the other box as well. And then one of the things that we noticed when we went out and we
started doing these audits is that we have a lot of residents who are doing an amazing job, and they
are cleaning out their yogurt and they're cleaning out their cat jar or cat food and dog food.
Everything is just pristine. And those are the residents that we want to highlight and give them
you are a recycling star. So we've been able to personally hand these out to people in their
garages as they notice what we're doing and ask us. And they're super pumped about it and put them
on the refrigerators. So some of our top contaminated items that we found when we went out and we started
looking in these bins was plastic bags. Whether it was grocery bags that flexible plastic or bagged
recyclable. So we spent the past two years really our social media campaign is focused on bagged
recyclable. So we used to say keep things empty, clean, loose, and dry. Now we move to unbagged.
You can see this picture here. This is at your local mall. So if you're out there walking,
you'll see this image. Also we have had a couple of billboards that have been posted over the past
couple of years. We've been able to wrap some of our trucks in our fleet. I think we have three to
four vehicles that are wrapped now that all have a message about keeping your recyclables out of a
bag. Recently we have sponsored the player of the game or the touchdowns for some of the high school
games. And then most recently that's not on here which is super exciting. We have an ad out on
Spanish radio talking about grocery bags and bagged recyclables. So this is some of our car tagging
metrics. So this is the entire program from start to finish. So it's a it's a pretty long data range
there. But the important thing to see is that we've touched every single route. So now we have gone
and we've touched every single route. As a reminder, I don't think I told you this, but our auditors
are on foot. So they do drive out to the streets or to their routes and then they get out and they
walk from stop to stop. So it does take a long time to to get across the entire city as a whole.
So we have been able to audit 35,000 homes and that's not our complete residence that we service.
But we have touched every single route but not all residents put their card out every single week so
we won't be able to touch them all. Overall we're seeing about a 33 percent contamination rate that
does include both oops and notice tags. Included in that number in the beginning we were seeing
higher numbers more like 50 percent but now we're seeing a lot lower numbers.
And then spoiler alert, this is our results for this past fiscal year that we just completed.
And in September we've seen a three-year low in contamination of 28 percent contaminated. So
cart tagging program isn't the main thing here. We have a lot of other things but it really has driven
our social media and our post about how we want to make sure that people are keeping bags out
and then any other contaminants that we find along the way. And then this again is just a visual
representation of the same thing you seen earlier. So as a reminder in January of 2021 we were at 68
percent. You see all the bright red and if you look over to August of 2024 we're at 28 percent
and now you see the introduced yellow and blues. So green is exactly where we want to be so we're
not there yet. We still have a ways to go but we have come really far. And any questions?
Mr. Rybak. Yes I have a couple questions. One thing you notice this if you'd go back to the
slide with the program improvements and the various notice tags. Yes. Okay our neighborhood
got tagged recently. I was very surprised and the number one thing that they were complaining about
in the tags I just happened to get home when they were still walking our particular street
was a single use paper. But we didn't get a notice or an oops we got the yellow tag. So our can was
not picked up and there were numerous yellow tags on our street and I asked the fellows who were
lifting the lids and doing the examinations. They said well you guys had way too much single
use paper in here. I'm like well but it's all clean single use paper. I said well that doesn't
matter. I was like well that's interesting because on my calendar that I download each year about the
dates and so forth single use paper is not listed. And on the most recent flyer I got from utilities
also does not mention single use paper. Clean or dirty immaterial you don't want it that's fine.
But we didn't get a notice and I don't believe our neighborhood had ever been audited before we
just got a no pickup. Boom yellow tag you're out clean it up it won't be picked up. Yeah so anyway
I didn't like that very well. I'm kind of responsible for you being here today to give this
presentation. So I'm just wondering about the efficacy of your program. Obviously it's very
effective. I can see that it's been going on for a long time. I was completely unaware of it. We
didn't receive any prior notice. Boom they showed up. Boom they yellow tagged us. Boom they drove by
our can. So it was kind of disheartening to be notified in that way about something that even
though I'm trying to pay attention I knew nothing about. Yeah I'm gonna let Brian take this. Okay.
Lucky you. Well two things. First of all Brian Burner Solid Waste Director I appreciate you
bringing this up. And you know you can see that you know our cart tagging program is responsible
for really driving down the contamination and in turn increasing the quality of the recyclables
that we're doing. This audit is also like a pop test. You can all remember back when we were in
grade school we always feared the pop test. One because we didn't know what was happening so we
had to make sure that we knew it was going on. So point taken. You didn't know. We'll take that in.
We'll include that in our program. But secondarily the pop test doesn't only test the student. It
also affects the teacher to determine is our program teaching in an appropriate way. So again
thank you for bringing that up. But again you know it's a two-way sword here is we you know if
we told everybody when we were coming then you know like cramming for the test you know you cram
for the day and then you go back. So really what we're trying to do is create that muscle memory
to ensure that our our our recycling is the quality that we want.
Bill I appreciate that. Again if we had gotten a first notice tag saying oh by the way all
single-use paper is not desired then that would have been an easy change to make. Right. And I
assure you we have made it. Good. You saved me a lot of trouble because I don't have to separate it.
Good. Very good. Following up on a previous question for this fiscal year we have
actually taken in gross tonnage from our recycling program 11,456 tons which is an increase over last
year of 326 net tons being 7,606 which is a increase of 702 which means that you know we're
cleaning not only are we we have growth in the system but we're also collecting cleaner materials
going into so really coming out the back end and going to that the landfill is 3,850 tons a year
and again we want to try to drive that down. Okay so when you can be that figure of the number of
tons going to landfill that's what's being separated out from recycling. Correct that is
that is what is going and when you say separated out that's really a misnomer it's not going through
the system and then at the very end after we've picked everything out a lot of this is pulled out
on the front end if they see contamination they're they're pulling out large swaths of it
so because again you've got physical people online that are pulling things out and if it's plastic
bags they're not going to break them open the plastic gets into the gears and the bearings
pushes the bearings out shuts down the machine so a lot of that is you know based on employee
safety as well as ensuring the viability of the mechanics on the front end of the system. So if
your tonnage if you've identified the tonnage you're removing I'm wondering do we also know
how much more tonnage we're putting into the landfill as a result of this shift? Actually
it's how much less again you know this year today we've put in 3,850 I could go back to next last
year's number and even though we were collecting smaller tonnage we would smaller gross tonnage we
would have greater material a greater quality of material going to the land removed inside separate
it out so again this this this 3850 that we're seeing is actually a reduction over what we would
have seen last year at this time. I guess that's good it is very good and it was nice to see the
long-term impact of the program again we didn't get a notice we just got tagged and they drove
by us and that was that. And I get it and I appreciate it and we'll do a better job of including
ensuring that that those products are included but again you know to the end and the example
the pop test we're not going to tell neighborhoods you know when we're going to be in your neighborhood
we still go with worst first so whatever the top two contaminated neighborhoods were from the last
month those are the two we're going to focus on for the next month. Well again single-use paper thing
but yes there's a line item somewhere on the website about it but the materials I've
received in the mail and that I download annually don't mention that so I thought
we were doing the right thing but we were not. Yes sir. Now that we've had confessional
I saw the aluminum and steel cans. Yes. But then metal is not allowed.
We see a lot of car parts coming into our our facility and again the way the Murph is set up
it's not set up to process car parts so again you know any kind of really the Murph is is more
container driven if it's a steel container an aluminum container a plastic container that is
what we can take but if it's if it's other metal type material car parts you know shelving you can
either take it to a metal recycler or bring it to us at the landfill either we've got recycling
bins free of charge you can throw it in there we have a place for you to get rid of it. Then
you'll address that. Correct. A couple other questions I have it was interesting what you
brought up so we're talking about recycling so there there is that animal and by reducing
the undesired elements they're going to the landfill. Correct. So my question is has there
been a study as to it what kind of increase then because I'm assuming if we were sending it off to
Murph and that's not going to work and we're talking about 11 million what'd you say we have
we have collected 11,456 tons curbside okay into going into the land into the Murph and then they
have processed and actually been able to sell on the open market 7,606 tons. That's wonderful but
so it stands to reason that there's going to be a higher percentage now going into the landfill
that was accidentally putting in through the Murph is that correct or are you taking that out
and still throwing it in the landfill? If I understand your correct your question correctly
anything that is not sold on the third party market as a as a commodity paper plastic to some
end user that material goes out the back door to the landfill. Which landfill? City of Denton
landfill. So Pratt Pratt's taking it out there and at the facility at our landfill right okay.
Correct so I look at that as a as a double customer entity in other words we got the
green dumpsters are all going to landfill we know what's coming in we have pretty much that
down. It sounds like to me now we have a new number coming in that's rejects of the recycling
I'll call it. What percentage have you all looked at what kind of increase in the landfill that
that is creating? We have not answered that question specifically because we've done waste
characterization studies and we know what the components are what the potential that we can
recycle but we also know that you know every two things first of all every year we've got new stuff
being introduced in the market. Tammy brought up excuse me Brandy brought up like the Amazon
packages that you know are bubble wrap and then may have the the paper on the outside you know
it's a melded welded product that's trash because we can't separate that plastic from that so as new
products you know those are going to have to go to the landfill but as we get a whole lot smarter
about you know the packaging in fact three weeks ago I was at a conference where we were talking
about packaging and new you know ways that things are being put together so that they can be pushed
into the recycle market. We will always have a sector that will will end up going to the landfill
but year over year over year even though the population is growing and our tonnage is increasing
we are seeing less coming out the back of Pratt to go to the landfill and more commodities being
sent to the open market. And I then my discussion I think I should have with regular the regular
trash solid waste versus your recycling because I and I'd like to then see something along the
lines of has there been a study with this increase and I hope we do it forget about Pratt going out
the back door now I'm doing my own Pratt as it were and so my green dumpster is going to be
filling up a little bit more and it's going to go to the landfill so I'm curious as to what is
does that affect the life expectancy of that landfill to a to a beyond the comfort levels?
No because from our standpoint everything sitting on the curb of a customer here in the city of
Denton is waste you put it in a green bin or you put it in a blue bin end of the day trash is going
to the landfill recycling is going to merge from being sold so whether that that incremental piece
ends up in the blue bin and then has to be sent to the landfill or it's put into the the green
bin and goes directly to the landfill what we're talking about is operational efficiency every
time we touch a piece of garbage more than once it costs us money it costs you money so if we can
get it put in the right dumpster at the right time and handle it once it helps us maintain our low
cost of service to our residents and I agree with that my point is I'm looking at a physical
mountain correct so much land that we've got yeah forget about the money cost we're now
is there there's going to be an increase in that landfill right I'm just curious as to has there
been a study as to what kind of percentage not that we can do anything about it other than I
think we need to be aware of that so that it might adjust our 30-year plan and I may be facetious
on that but you know that number is built into our long-term plan and we are you know we do
know what our growth rate is inclusive of that attorney do you have a yeah my comment was just
brian aren't you in the middle of doing a closure post closure study or haven't you done one recently
that that would show kind of life expectancy of of the the landfill house changed over time
yeah we so we have our comprehensive solid waste management strategy that laid out a
what our waste characterization is so we're working on our programmatic recycling here and
as you can see that our contamination levels have decreased which has increased the amount
of programmatic recycling that's being pulled out the other one that we're working on is 30 percent
of the makeup of our trash is organics so we recently did our organics pilot and valet so we
have a six phase program to pull that organic waste out of the landfill and then the other one which
we haven't started but we're trying to formulate is cnd construction and demolition is another
30 or 40 percent of the makeup of waste so that's another strategy that we're going to be using
to reduce that landfill space capacity concern so working on programmatic recycling and if you look
at the current trash makeup it's 50 50 of all your trashes could be recycled today in that blue bin
so when we're talking about pratt and the trash that's going to the landfill i would make a safe
assumption that probably 50 of that is also programmatic material but it was stuck in a bag
that we couldn't open because of safety concerns so being able to continue this outreach and
education on what is in our program is important to continuing to decrease the amount that's coming
out of pratt and going back to the landfill i think that's wonderful and so kudos to that
let's take that out and put it over here for a minute i want to know with that added
increase of trash not recyclable not murph not pratt this is what i'm doing
is that going to be affecting the landfill because more trash is going to be going in there
and then to the murph and then to the landfill or it's going into the green can and into the
landfill so the same amount of trash is coming from your house into the landfill it's just if
you put it in the blue bin as contamination it has to like yeah and i don't want that but that's
let me say something on what you just said this is theoretically there is now less going into the
landfill because you're educated and you're not putting things in your recycle bin so the in the
past they would just dump your entire recycle bin including the good stuff with the landfill stuff
because it was contaminated or the whole and actually the whole truck would be dumped yes so
most people produce five missing out on the recyclable five and a half pounds of waste per
day and it's the makeup that we're talking about yeah i think i think the key here is so we have
this metric of contamination and that's that's how much entered the murph that shouldn't have
basically then there's a second metric of diversion you know what percent of stuff
of waste got diverted and didn't make it to the landfill either you know we have yard waste
diversion recycling murph is diversion they have other diversion programs the landfill so i think
there's a there's two metrics and this one is just really focusing on contamination residential
residential bin contamination so i think and it would be good to see both those numbers and
you know 11 000 tons diverted or 11 000 tons initially routed to the murph 7 600 whatever
diverted um out of 200 000 tons to 100 000 tons i don't know what the what the total tonnage is
right that you can get a diversion right that way and so um sorry no no i appreciate i mean that's
what he said yes okay thank you i just have a quick question and you did not introduce yourself
oh i'm so sorry i read that memo too tammy clausie and a deputy director thank you
i have one other thing i would like to mention we talked a lot about the work
absolutely let me follow up on on tony's uh response uh annually as part of our tceq permit
to operate our facility we're required to do what's called a post a closure post closure analysis
purpose of that is to ensure that we have adequate funds set aside so that when we do fill it up in
in almost 45 years from now that money is available we don't have to to spend an extra tax for our
citizens to close it in post and part of that is ensuring that looking at last year's volume that
came in and making sure that that were our percentages are correct or sending the right
amount of money into this fund you know currently we are on track we still maintain that 45 years of
capacity that we're looking at our our engineering estimates to begin with are remaining stable
and as tammy was saying and as we're looking at this actually we're increasing our time to
closure because again the diversion that we're doing so we'll bring additional information back
to you but it is uh that you know we are actively looking at all these different variables uh you
know we're we're we're statistics nerds for lack of a better term it's not just you know throwing
garbage in a hole it's about you know the the the the numbers that drive this and and you know last
week i was at wastecon so we had 13 000 folks like us talking numbers and safety and and trash so
it's you know it's not just us it's part of the the standard that we operate so one other uh you
know of course mr ryback would take care of his right away but uh there may be some that uh are
just going to do what they're going to do correct and so at some point the sheriff has to come and
knock on the door i mean facetious but what what are the provisions for that currently our ordinance
does allow for us to to institute a a cart seizure program so if at some point in time we have a
person that is operating so nefariously that they and they have told us they cannot and they will
not then you know we'll we can seize the cart again you know that we don't want to get there
we want to be kinder and gentler our folks out in the field are talking with every with folks every
day we're actually working with the university of north texas right now in their anthropology
department and we're looking you know at at not only what's being recycled but but why and and
household makeup and and how that potentially affects what's going into so we're getting to
some pretty heady stuff as we're looking at the way that garbage and recycling is managed you know
one of the things that i it's it's what's called the nag slide or i call it the nag slide you know
does the wife tell the husband to recycle does the husband tell the wife
does the you know how do those family data and we're trying to work at that not only
not only who who recycles but the socioeconomic the demographic piece of it so that again as we're
divide you know devising these these notices cart you know our stickers our programs that
were being as effective as we possibly can in the community thank you mr ibeck
that was a long way around the horn but i'm glad that you covered that that was excellent um
the um one thing i wanted to mention is just a personal peeve you refer to this as contamination
now my line of work contamination is chemical biological or nuclear correct i consider this
maybe spoilage or non-responsive product or something along those lines obviously you're
committed to the term contamination it's probably in use industry-wide but long and i saw that tag
and it said contamination i was like wow you know where's the where's the hazmat suits
no i get it i spent a bulk of my career in in that industry and affecting those pieces and
and again it's a contractual term and it is an industry you know bmp best management practice
term uh but again my contamination is different than an uh environmental contaminate which is
different than a food contamination uh but again it's a it's a similar term okay but it was just
that was all part of the thing i was like how do you call this contamination it's it's just waste
material anyway thank you for that thank you personal item so i uh i do want to say i like
the i mean you know that the the the leading statistic right your headline here it's going
from 68 contamination down to 30 28 28 28 is you know that's that's a great statistic to see
you know it's a lot of hard work there uh i i was it looked like there were about 35 000
bin checks over three years or 37 months i think was the way that slide worked so that's about
eight or nine hundred a month getting checked uh and how many total uh residential customers are
there it's about 38 000 close to between 38 39 right now just growing okay and then uh and this
is you have like two interns that are doing this we actually don't so we we have a couple interns
um and we do employ them over the summer we've actually hired a full-time auditor so we have one
full-time auditor doing all the job um and then during the summer this past summer we hired four
interns um so it's usually just the one full-time auditor and then the summer months we have a couple
extra okay and i think there is the other side of this equation which is diversion rates so
contamination is don't put it in the blue bin if it doesn't belong but maybe people are just not
putting anything in the blue bin give zero contamination because there's nothing in the
blue bin uh so i think we also need to seek a you know what is our diversion rate and how are we
performing and um i know there in the last decade or so there've been you know major changes in the
solid waste department and it in like 2016-17 the diversion rates were above 30 residential
and contamination rates were around 20 and at the time there was an education program it used that
that family dynamic was i believe the term was uh intergenerational learning so to educate children
and the children would then teach their parents and and instead of doing you know or 800 contacts
a month maybe a similar number um but instead of perhaps that punitive approach of like i feel like
i'm in trouble or you know like you know got a citation uh it would the the perhaps the the
goal would be the kids come home from school or a program that they attended like a little one-hour
thing on excited to recycle and telling their parents oh you can't recycle that but we can
recycle this that kind of thing so they would aim to increase contaminant or decrease contamination
and improve diversion and i just wonder about the cost effectiveness of i don't know if it would be
possible to compare 2015 recycling education and numbers versus 2024 recycling audit numbers in in
cost well let's not forget that in between those dates we had the 2021 when you had your peak was
also the covid period the lockdowns the shutdowns everybody was stuck at home nothing was open i
mean there were some serious extenuating circumstances and i don't believe any of the
program i think at that time there was kind of a gap between programs too so i mean if you wanted
to look at a zero program year you might bring in 2020 or something like that but i'm just again for
cost effectiveness and like i said half of the equation is contamination but the other half of
the equation is diversion and c and d and other diversion programs are great but we also can keep
improving our residential recycling diversion as well 100 to follow up on that too just from the
graph um you know cart tagging is a small piece of the pie there's a lot of other things that
are happening and so didn't sustainable schools like we were just talking about there was a gap
during that time where we weren't in schools we actually seen our contamination at the
dent isd become 90 contaminated and so we do have an active person in that role currently and they
are back out at the schools we've seen that number drop tremendously but there was a big gap and we
had to get a handle on it and so we are back in the schools and the diversion commercial diversion
article that was recently passed we've been working very diligently to get all of the customers on
board we're at about 50 percent trying to help them educate them on what other items they can
divert outside of just programmatic material so that's c and d that we're talking about
or metal those big metals dumpsters that they can get from you know metal recyclers in town too so
absolutely also uh you know we're over the past four or five years we've aligned our metrics with
national best practices with regard to how they are done so you know one of the big
complaints i guess from a solid waste standpoint is the way i manage my diversion recycling may
be different than this city than this city so again you know there's a lot of work going in
to align what those are second half part of that is you know with enough money you can probably
do anything and you may remember that five years ago we we lowered our cost to the resident 27
percent you know a lot of not to say a lot of that money was spent you know in recycling education
but there was a lot of of money being spent for a very little return our you know our current
diversion rate is right at about what 28 i believe it is our goal is 30 by 2030 40 by 2040 75 by 2075
and we're well on our ways to reaching those ends so again doing it cost-effectively first
and foremost but secondly being you know uh meeting those industry standards and and being best in
class unless there's further discussion thank you very much thank you that i'm glad we get to use
all that information you compiled it'd be a shame if we didn't ask questions i hope red dixie cups
still are going into the blue right you're talking the solo cup yes no right red solo cups
yes can they go in the blue they're plastic yes okay because i got a lot of college guys i gotta
gotta get them to start moving their stuff around clean okay thank you that was the but not coat
hangers not no coat hangers those are tanglers they tangle and i told her and she said but it's
recyclable i said you take it to the dry cleaner they love it i am all right mr chair before before
you move um um just for clarification it sounds like uh mr reiner was looking for some additional
feedback i think i'm fine with the conversation that i've had although we did want the diversion
if we could okay i'll go ahead and submit that uh the solid waste and we'll get it get a schedule
back to you i appreciate that anything else lee okay you've already got slapped on the hand and
godly everybody else got slapped it's okay it's a life lesson i bet hoa bumped him it's a life
lesson all right now there's nothing further except for the sidebars we stand adjourned yay