July 3, 2009

County awards waste stream study contract

By Sam Craig
The Chronicle

     Some decisions are easier to make after eating a handful of freshly-picked cherries.
     At its weekly meeting on Wednesday, July 1, the Wasco County Court met to discuss several topics over a box containing about 10 pounds of sweet, shiny, red cherries picked that morning from trees in County Judge Dan Ericksen’s orchard.
     The first item on the agenda was to choose a consultant to study “the best solutions for handling organics from the solid waste stream of the Oregon Tri-County Area of the Columbia River Gorge.”
     It might sound complicated, but “organics” simply means the yard waste, agricultural trash, food scraps, forest biomass and soiled, non-recyclable paper, and “solid waste stream” is the total amount of garbage that flows from homes and businesses to the landfill. All of these are items that can be recycled and don’t need to be trucked off to the dump.
     Organic waste has become a big issue all across the country. Many areas have special garbage cans for yard waste, and several sanitary companies are experimenting with containers specially created for food scraps. The members of the Steering Committee with the Tri-County Hazardous Waste & Recycling Program — which covers Wasco, Hood River and Sherman counties— is looking for a similar commercial solution, so they put out a request for proposals that closed on June 5.
     Tri-County had 15 people inquire about the request and five proposals were received. Tri-County’s Steering Committee put up $50,000 from their budget for the study. The County Court awarded a contract to the Seattle-based Cascadia Consulting Group for $48,000 to provide the study.
     Cascadia estimated that organic waste makes up 25 percent of the waste stream going to the landfill. In their proposal, Cascadia said there are technologies available that, under the right circumstances, can use the organic waste products and reduce air pollution, improve agricultural soils, can be used for energy production and to create local jobs.
     The court — which, on Wednesday, was made up of Erickson and county commissioner Bill Lennox (Sherry Holliday was absent) — voted unanimous to award the contract to Cascadia.
     The court also:
     • took into consideration an intergovernmental agreement between the Mid-Columbia Council of Governments and Wasco County to bring Dial-A-Ride service to Wasco County.
     The service will run across the county, though the agreement said, “the majority of the service [will be] available in The City of The Dalles.” Transport vehicles will give rides to the elderly and the disabled for trips to doctor appointments, the grocery store or any other place they may need to go.
     The on-demand service will cost $1.75 per one-way trip, with the remaining cost of the trip picked up by MCCOG and Wasco County, helped out by a matching grant from ODOT. The Dial-A-Ride program will also be receiving a grant from the federal government for an as-of-yet unknown amount.
     • Approved the adoption of the Amended Wasco County Impoundment, Towing and Booking Procedure Ordinance. The changes to the ordinance were small, adding that after a car had been impounded, the car could be searched for items underneath after-market seat and dashboard covers.
     • approved the official end of the burn season with a burn ban that went into effect July 2.
     After adjourning the meeting, Ericksen said he was headed back out to his cherry orchard where he’s got about five more days of cherry picking ahead of him. Ericksen promised to bring back more cherries to next week’s meeting, Rainiers if he can get them.