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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN JUN 28 1988 (2) EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Requested by Tom Warner, Public works Director CITY MANAGER ALBERT HAINES : The next item is a resolution that would confirm a $50 , 250 emergency purchase order issued to Bankston Construction Company on June 10th for hauling 15 , 000 cubic yards of clay cover material to the landfill and spreading it over an area of exposed garbage . Emergency procurement procedure was followed in order to avoid a potentially serious health problem . Before I make a recommendation to Council , I would like to advise the Mayor and Coui%cil that subsequent to the distribution of this agenda, we have made some subsequent decisions relative to the operation and oversight of the landfill . I would be prepared to present that to you at this time or, if you would prefer, we could discuss it in Workshop but it is not posted on the Workshop Agenda. MAYOR MEYERS : Let me ask Council is they have any questions relative to this and what would be their pleasure? Basically, the Managerls 'question is with the appropriation here being ratified for the emergency purchase order whether you want to discuss other issues pertinent to that facility now or act here and move into the workshop and have a discussion at a later time? Anybody' s pleasure . Very well , then . . . yes? COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Well, I have a question in regards to the amount of fill cover we purchased thus far so are we going to go to a workshop with it or will it be discussed or is this the discussion that we are going to have on it? CITY MANAGER: Councilman, relative to the item itself, we would be prepared to discuss the general issue of cover, what the requirements of that cover may yet continue to be, as well as the disposition of the operational dimension of the landfill and the Texas Department of Health ' s actions that we received here over the last couple of weeks . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: I would like to know what direction we are going so I ' d like us to . . . COUNCILMAN BRUMLEY: Why don' t we just do it in workshop? COUNCILMAN LEE: We can' t do it today, right? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD jUNE 28 , 1988 Page Z CITY ATTORNEY LANE NICHOLS : Can' t do it today. CITY MANAGER: In a workshop? CITY ATTORNEY: Can' t do it today. As I understand it, there was no notice posted for Workshop to do that . It could be discussed in context with this . . . . . . . You can do it now or . . . . . . COUNCILMAN LEE : Six of one , half a dozen of another. CITY MANAGER: Okay. COUNCILMA14 BRUMLEY: In other words, you could defer it to workshop? 14AYOR MEYERS : Let me ask first, does council have questions that they would want to ask relative to the action requested for the approval of the resolution as it ' s before you? -COUNCILMAN SAMUEL : Yes, I have a question. MAYOR MEYERS : Please . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: To cover Cell 300 and 200 , will this be adequate fill for that? CITY M-A!,IAGER: No. -V COUNCILMAN SAYUEL: So, would we still be possibly in violation without adequate fill? CITY MANAGER: What I would like to do is, if I could, in response to the question, lead into the background and the events that have occurred and where we are at this point? And, essentially, to indicate to Council that this was a . . . sort of a mediating effort that was done very short term in terms of the -issuance of the emergency order knowing that we would need to come to council at some point in time in the future to consider going further, but, at this point, we are only asking for a confirmation from Council of an emergency purchase order in this amount only and then we will proceed to discuss what needs to be done from this point forward. EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JTUTNE 21 , 1988 Page 3 CITY MANAGER continued: I ' d like to back up to the events that surrounded a letter that we received in may from the Department of Health . At that time, we were notified that we were in violation and in some relative to the permit we had received for the operation of the landfill . We responded by taking an initial action of requesting of the Department for an extension for 90 days to allow us to respond in a positive way to address the violations that we . . . that had been served on us . I might mention to Council that that June . . . that May letter was the first official notification that we had received from a . . . I believe it was an April or March inspection . . . March inspection. The second thing we did was the . . Mr. Warner began to review the general management expertise of the landfill at that time and, also, to initiate some discussion and some investigation to look at pot ential alternatives for landfill operation. It was during that time that occurred on June Sth when a second inspection was conducted and we were notified verbally by the inspector of continued non-compliance and the potential for administrative penalties to be assessed. As Council will recall , 'I was out of town at that time. I discussed it at some length over the phone with Mr. Warner and essentially directed that he accelerate the investigative work that he was doing at the landfill and also to be prepared to submit to me some recommendations to respond both to the manner in which the landfill was being operated and managed and secondly what course of action we ought to initiate relative to the violations of our permit that were cited in June, as well as the one in may. When I came back a week ago Monday, we had further discussion. Mr. Warner had initiated internally some action and it was his recommendation to me that we consider retaining the services of another firm, of an outside firm, since in his judgment wetVnot have the expertise in house to be able to respond to the satisfaction faction of the Department of Health in particularly in the time frame that they were demanding, were requiring. we reviewed his recommendations and on Friday of last week I went ahead and authorized Mr. Warner to enter into a service agreement with a company known as Western Waste Industries to take on the responsibility for the . . . on a short-term basis the management of the landfill, to review and make operational changes to that landfill and secondly to assume the responsibility for participating with the city in meeting with the Health Department relative to the permit violations so that we could come back into compliance . At this point, Mayor, I ' d like to ask Mr. Warner to introduce the two principals who are here from the company. I would like them to introduce themselves to you and give you a very brief introduction to what their work program will be as well as to what their observations have been to date. Tom EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28, 1988 Page 4 COUNCILMAN MOORE : Before you start, I have one question, Al . CITY MANAGER: Yes . COUNCILMAN MOORE : I understand we 've purchased cover, 15 , 000 cubic yards . Is there still a potential health hazard in the two cells that are still not adequately covered? CITY MANAGER: Yes , our opinion is that there is a need to address the general health and welfare of the community. That ' s the reason we have proceeded the way we have and I know we did have some discussion with Mr. Nichols and I think he concurred. My own inspections of the site tend to reinforce my opinion that the emergency order was a very short term deal and was not sufficient to address the entire problem and I think these gentlemen can then sort of - not indirectly, but in a very direct way answer Mr. �-o the cover.- Samuel ' s question relative t COUNCILMAN COKINOS : Have they already been hired? CITY MANAGER: Yes , sir. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : At what cost? CITY MANAGER : $15, 000 a month. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : Is that what the City is paying them? $15, 000 a month to run the landfill? CITY MANAGER: Run the landfill and to bring the landfill into permit compliance . COUNCILMAN COKINOS : And the company is Western Waste . . . ? CITY MANAGER: Western Waste Industries . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 5 COUNCILMAN MOORE : The reason I asked this question, Al , is because last evening I was a little bit concerned about the odors I brought up I guess a month and a half ago. Since the same problem is persisting and I just wondering if they are going to completely rectify it. CITY MANAGER: Yes, Sir. That' s part of the term of the contract . . . like I said, I ' d like Mr . Warner to introduce the principals at this point, Tom . . . COUNCILMAN COKINOS : One more question. How long are they? . . . when were they hired? CITY MANAGER: Yesterday. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : Yesterday. And, what' s the length of the contract with this company? CITY MANAGE It will be for one year. COUNCILMAN COKINOS: It will be for one year. Are we . . . we are in violation now. Has the fine already been administered to the City? CITY MANAGER: No. COUNCILMAN COKINOS: The $10, 000 a day? CITY MANAGER: There ' s a meeting to be held at least tentatively on the 6th that among other things the question of administrative penalties will be reviewed and discussed. We think there are still a number of remedies that can be resolved . . . addressed- and resolved in a hurry with . . . we are optimistic that they will defer any imposition of penalties as a result of hearing our work plan. Like I say, if I could, mayor, I ' d like to ask Mr. Warner to introduce them and I think maybe open it up for any questions of Council at that point . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD TUNE 28 , 1988 Page 6 COUNCILMAN COKINOS : May I ask you one more question, sir . From what fund is this $15 ,000 a month be taken from? CITY MANAGER: --ax obligation on this The landfill fund. There ' s no general fund or t one . Tom . . . MR. TOM WARNER, PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR: Thank you, sir. MAYOR MEYERS : Let me mention before Tom would introduce the gentlemen here, and we had opportunity to meet them, we' ll make sure all opportunities for all questions are satisfied. MR. WARNER: Thank you, . Mayor. At this time I ' d like to introduce the director of the landfill operations for Western Waste Industries , Mr. Imri Szekelyhidi . He is out of their Conroe office and will be responsible for the operation of the landfill . MR. IMRI SZEKE T YHIDI : Thank you, mayor and Council . And if I may, I ' d like to introduce Doug Wall who is serving as our project coordinator in conjunction with this project. Western Waste Industries is I think if I may take the opportunity to give you a brief background as to who we are as a company. Western is the fourth largest waste managemeni? company in the United States, headquartered out of Los Angeles, and we'have a regional office styled the Waste Disposal Services Group which has the administrative function for all transfer stations and sanitary landfills that we have within the United States . I am director of landfill operations for the company and I am in charge of all of the day-to-day operations of all of our facilities whether they are our own fee and permit or under contract to the public sector as well as any development of any future projects . The company itself is a thirty-five year old firm. It started in Southern California back in 1954 as a single truck operation and since has evolved to as I mentioned earlier the fourth largest company in the United States . we are publicly held and we are traded on the NASDAQ Exchange. We have been involved in the transfer and landfill business since 1968. We have facilities in numerous states . we have had four -facilities in Texas, two that are still currently operating. We have been involved in similar kinds of contractual , situations with municipalities and county governments where we have come in in the short term and attempted to deal with emergency situations . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 7 MR. SZEKELYHIDI continued: The contacts that were made by the staff with Western were to one determine whether there were sufficient justifications for entering into any kind of emergency contract for waste management services and secondly a fairly exhaustive investigation of Western ' s capability. They not only looked into the present scope of operations that we' re providing to contracting entities, but looked into our experience and our relationships with regulatory bodies that are effecting you in this particular instance . We have as a part of this program performed an audit of your facility and made specific recommendations . The basic program that we are suggesting to provide the Council and the City were outlined in a proposal that was submitted I believe last Friday and accepted this past Monday. If I may take just a brief opportunity, I ' ll outline the basic scope of that proposal and I believe Mr . Warner has sufficient copies and I think will make them available to members of the Council and any other interested parties . If any additional copies are required, we will be more than happy to make them available . Basically, upon review of the permit file and an 'investigation of the site and with the good offices of Mr. Warner, the inspection of the facility and your records within the city, we have made a number of determinations . on a historical basis, at least near term, the City has been found in some rather significant violations of the Solid waste Management Code . None of these violations are non-correctable . They are solvable problems and issues but they will require some effort of personnel , some technical expertise and certainly some good relations hopefully with the Texas Department of Health. And' what our basic program that we proposed to the City Manager was that we would break our work scope down into a short-term program and a long-term program. The short term program would basically encompass the first 90 days . The long term program encompass the next 9-month period of �nle . The basic objective of the short term program is to get the landfi as quickly as possible compliant on a day-to-day basis with the solid waste management regulations , particularly dealing with the issues addressed in the various enforcement letters that have been issued in the 'Last few months that have not been satisfied to the Department of Health' s satisfaction. The second goal which is very quickly facing the community is the agreement with the Department of Health for a compliance order that would be agreed to and issued by the Department of Health for a time table for remediation of the environmental concerns that they have noted in previous inspection reports . The third activity that we would take that once that order had been agreed to is to advise the Council in the proper personnel and equipment and other resource needs that would be necessary and that includes any budgeted funds if need be to accomplish that task. EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 418 , 1986 Page 8 MR. SZEKELYHIDI continued: Now, that' s a big, tall order and it ' s very difficulty to go into great deal of definition of what that may entail today since we effectively only were out there in an advisory capacity role yesterday but our experience has been in the past that you have I believe the personnel compliment and the asset resources available . The assets being the equipment and earth and material on site to accomplish the concerns that the environmental agencies have identified for you. The key issue is what amount of time and what program that you will be able to present to their satisfaction and will they give you that allotted time to perform those functions so that you can have a secure environmental operation at a reasonable expense . we feel all that is accomplishable . What we are proposing and have a meeting scheduled with staff is that we will be revising our projections and our estimates over the course of the next few days and suggesting some possible conceptual courses of action for the meeting on the 6th that we would then be able to work with the staff and ultimately recommend to the Council for final action as the obligation that you will propose to the Department of Health that you will deliver. Once that is resolved, that' s the program that will then be implemented and we will seek to effect that program such that you are not going to be in any violation during the course of our agreement . The long term objectives of our program which are in the next nine month period post the 90 days is a thorough review and evaluation of your entire solid waste management program as it effects the landfill operation. There are numerous issues that come to the fore that are worthy of consideration. one, what kind of a landfill operation do you want to effect . Basically, are you desiring to serve as a regional fill or a fill just to accommodate the waste disposal needs Qf "the community and what kind of time frame would you be wanting thos4 services to be provided for. In other words, how much air space and life should this landfill last you? Based upon that, you have various subsets of issues that then come into the fore. Do you want to optimize that air space to the maximum extent possible? What are the procedures that one would have to go through to be able to do that? what would be the associated cost for engineering, permitting services , additional work efforts at the landfill, and what other environmental concerns needs to be addressed as a result of some pending regulations at the State and Federal level over the course of the next couple of years? And, we would also address specific issues dealing with once the landfill operation is stabilized, what kind of a program based upon the long term objectives of the- Council that you would like to have in waste management? What would be the secure operation that you can effect in the most reasonable and economical manner in the sense of resource allocation? Personnel , equipment, and use of the available land space that ' s there. EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Pace 9 CITY MANAGER: Imri, would you please comment on Councilman Samuel ' s question relative to the adequacy of cover at the present time and what your thoughts might be relative to providing additional cover out there? At least preliminary . . . MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Be happy to, sir. You have out there two cells that have been developed aerially, that is above grade . These two cells have not been properly closed. For that matter, they have not been properly daily covered. Regulations of the Department of Health are very specific . The potentiality for administrative penalties are also very specific . I think, however, that good faith efforts made to comply with the requirements will give you a lot of breathing room not to have those penalties . EUIC., the assessments that we have made to date, just on the footprint size of the area that does require proper earth and cover, will approximate 300, 000 cubic yards of material to be made available to effect proper cover for closure. Now, 300, 000 yards is a considerable multiple over the 15 , 000 yards that you purchased on'an emergency basis . You basically have two sources of material that you can access . The first, you could purchase material off site from a number of potential bidders vendors . The second alternative, which we think is the more practical and certainly the most cost effective, is to utilize the available space that has not been developed and manage the mining of the cover materials needed on site in a timely manner and the proper placement of that material such that you do get to be in compliance with the regulations . Now, the key thing there is are you one going to be able to make a program and justify that program to the Department of "`with that will give you the time to effect it? Even if you were to attempt to contract with the previous contractor who sold you the * earth or a series of others, 300, 000 yards of material imported and placed is not going to be done in a rather expeditious manner. The process that it goes through and proper placement and compaction of the material and all that is a multiple-week process in the best of circumstances . So, what we would suggest to the State is a definition of the existing condition a timetable that is environmentally acceptable and cost- effective for getting the site into compliance . We feel that you have within the municipal forces of personnel and equipment, sufficient equipment to provide for the mining of material on site and its proper placement for daily and final cover. EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY CCUNC-IIIJ SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 10 MR. SZEKELYHIDI continued: The key issue is and that we don' t have an answer for today and this is part of the process and planning that we are undertaking with the staff is to determine what kind of allocation of these resources from existing solid waste budget and the street and bridge budget might be available near-term, medium-term, long-term, to accomplish these goals . But, until we have at least some idea conceptually of the acceptance of a certain remediation program by the Department of Health, we can make some general assessments on what the needs will be from the City forces . But, we think that is accomplishable . we think the program we are going to suggest will be deliverable with existing personnel and equipment and should be at other than the impact to the various budgets and various departments be minimal . COUNCILMAN MOORE : My question again, I guess I should voice that concern to you, within the last month or so, you know this has been a problem and I would like to know exactly what it is that you need to do, regardless of the budget or where it comes from to accelerate this process and bring into compliance and remove the health hazard that ' s potentially out there? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : You have two cells out there that have been aerially developed and you have just of yesterday commenced operating in new-lined areas that have been certified and accepted by the department of health. What we seek to do and we are doing as of yesterday is mining material available on site and Mr. Warner has been very gracious and loaning I believe about 10 dump trucks for the activity and a couple of backhoes to expedite the mining of material so that it could be placed on to 11 No . 200 and 300 . It is being placed in a systematic manner Zo get at least intermediate cover down that would satisfy the State ' s concerns . We feel this activity which is a one-foot of cover to be placed would probably accomplishable within a month' s period of time at the present rate that we are going. The activity that we are undertaking is quite expeditious and I feel quite certain that the Department of Health would so recognize it . And, I don' t believe at this point that there needs to be much . . . anything else done in a more speedy manner because I 'm afraid we ' re already tripping over each other with what is on-going. We are attempting to deal with many issues on the property that are historical in nature that dealt with this operation and some of those in all honesty have not been noted in enforcement letters but they are violations and so we are attempting to deal with each one on a priority basis . The most immediate one of course is the placement of intermediate cover and then ultimately the closure of those cells . COUNCILMAN COKINOS: Have you had the opportunity to inspect the landfill as to the life expectancy of this landfill? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 18 , 1988 Page 11 MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Yes , sir, minimally. You have sufficient acreage out there based on the tonnage that you are receiving I think to go twenty plus years . COUNCILMAN COKINOS : Well , about three years ago, I understand it was thirty years and not recently but about six or eight months ago we were told, this City Council , it had eleven years and now here you come and tell us that we have twenty years? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Yes , sir, and that ' s hard to believe but I think you will see and we would like to afford the opportunity to all parties that are interested to come and inspect our facilities at whichever location because what I may tell you is not necessarily believable until you see it in the field being performed. One of the things that we have observed on your landfill is that the compaction effort that has been accomplished is approximately 6 . . to 700 pounds to a cubic yard. That ' s how tightly you pack the garbage every day. We routinely compact garbage between 1800 and 2000 pounds to a cubic yard. The same quantity of garbage is reduced three-fold minimally over what you are accomplishing. We feel certain for two reasons we can extend your landfill life. The minimal one is that we can train your personnel. to utilize their equipment in the most efficient manner to get you the density that you need to have to extend the life of the site to its designed parameters . Secondly, we can recommend for you courses of action and all the associated activities and costs that would be necessary to optimize the potential footprint development . That would be by gc4-rig potentially deeper and higher and modifying the site development plIn by amendment. If the Council ultimately elects to do that, there will be a program laid out for your action as to how you can accomplish that. COUNCILMAN MOORE: Will the immediate cover remove the odor that' s been in the community for the last month? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : In time it will, sir, but until you get all the solid waste covered and you get the drainage issues dealt with. These are the other issues that were not really touched on in the enforcement letters . You have discharges of leachate from the landfill which are a factor that cover was not applied. Rainfall and the moisture in the waste itself and the depth of the refuse is causing a squeeze so this leachate is oozing out at various locations . It' s getting into the surface drainage system which does not have in many locations discharge points because again the way the landfill has been operated. It was not operated in accordance with its site development plan. EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 12 MR. SZEKELYHIDI continued: These issues are being dealt with simultaneously. As you solve the problem of daily cover, as you solve the problem of drainage, your odors will abate very significantly. The tonnage that you have coming into this landfill which approximates 600 tons a day should be able to be compacted with proper techniques being applied into a surface area of 75 by 100 square feet per day, necessitating no more than 200 or 250 yards of earth and cover for 911 worth of material . That level of activity and that density and that cover very effectively produce . . . precludes the generation of any vectors or odors but the key is that you've got to get the landfill covered properly. You also have a minor bird problem . We think over time that too will pass when the landfill gets to operating like it should be , a state-of-the-art facility. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Has technology provided alternative means of cover 4--hat' s accepted by the Department of Health? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Yes , sir, they have . They' ve basically accepted two other methodologies . one is foam application and they would like to see very good reasons why you would want to use foam and in this case that ' s not your problem. You don' t have a soil balance problem where you have non availability of soil . The problem has been that you have not used the resources available to you. You ' ve not applied earth and cover daily. As a matter of fact, weeks on end. The second method that is acceptable , again as a back up to availability of daily cover is to lay down some kind of polyethelene sheeting and remove that sheeting daily and put more waste down. But it is still in combinat&6n, which ever alternative is utilized, still with earth, butt you have the availability. It just needs to be managed and utilized. MAYOR MEYERS : What other questions does council have? I have some . I' ll hold them until you' ve had opportunity. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : I 've got a question. What bothers me is here we ' re going to spend $195 , 000 on a consultant or advisory capacity. Hasn' t the City . . . Mr. Warner or the city manager, have anyone that can in this city that can fill that gap since . . . since the supervisor has been dismissed? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 13 CITY MANAGER: The answer to your questions are first of all . the agreement we have with Western Waste is more than advisory.. . It' s running it as well . There are two components to this agreement . And, the answer to your second question, Councilman, is no we don' t and frankly we are in this situation we are in today is largely as a result that we have not had nor developed that expertise in house . As Emery has represented to you and I . . . with a fact with which I would concur, this dilemma this problem at the landfill is historical . It did not begin in May or March of this year. It ' s been going on for many years and I would like to add to just one statement that he did make and one of the reasons why the emergency order is as . . . is in the amount that it is and it is not adequate to complete cover is because Imri came forward and said why spend up to $1 . 0 million . . . was it $1 . 0 million? More than that. MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Well , the previous price you paid was $3 . 35 a cubic yard. CITY MANAGER: Why spend that kind of money to have fill material brought in to cover that landfill when you can go and do an alternate way of excavation at your own site and do it for . . . . . . MR . SZEKELYHIDI : . . . a fraction of the cost, but it would all be borne with existing personnel and equipment. CITY MANAGER: . . . one-fifth or one-eighth of the cost and my opini-ibn' if that idea alone bears fruit, it ' s spending $15, 000 a month to 4m- e up with that and to develop that idea as contrast to spending over a million dollars more than we would have to, so . . . COUNCILMAN COKINOS: But at the same time, I hope you appreciate my thoughts to try to save the City $195 , 000 for another consulting firm to come into the City and I 'm inquiring whether or not we can escape this $195,000 by doing it ourselves . CITY MANAGER: My absolute conclusion and response to your question, Councilman, is no, we cannot. We don' t have the expertise and we have not had it. I EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 14 MAYOR MEYERS : Now, let me ask everybody to raise their hands so that everyone can speak. Audwin, I think you' re next. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Yes , I have several questions . When did we determine that our operations weren' t satisfactory? CITY MANAGER: Tom . . . MR. WARNER: we had a inspection of the landfill in March. We received official notification of . . . . . . COUNCILMAN BRUMLEY: Do you mean when did we deterMine as it relates to the Health Department or when did we determine as it relates to the City? COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: That was my second question. The first is when did we determine that the operations of the City, the landfill or the City was not being operated properly? MR. WARNER: In looking at that question, you could almost go back in some instances to months after the landfill was originally opened depending on what you are looking at. For example, Section two hundred was a section that the City moved out of in 1986 , 1 believe, and in accordance with the Texas Department of Health regulations , final cover should begin being placed on that facility in that area within I believe thirty days and it had not been placed as late as . . . . . . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: okay, so my question is when did we determine that the landfill operation was not being done satisfactorily? CITY MANAGER: I made that determination, Councilman, on June the 10th. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Of this year? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 15 CITY MANAGER : Yes , Mr. Warner may have made a determination previous to that but . . . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Okay, and when did the Texas Department of Health determine that we were in violation or we were not operating properly? CITY MANAGER: May the 10th, is that the date? MAYOR MEYERS and COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: March the 13th? CITY MANAGER: We were not aware . . . we were notified officially by the State . . . I was not aware that an inspection had taken place nor I 'm not sure that Mr. Warner was aware of the content of that inspection until May. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Wasn' t someone there? Didn' t . . . . . . ? CITY MANAGER: The landfill manager, landfill superintendent and the sanitation. manager were aware . COUNCILMAN SMITH: They didn' t convey this to you? COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: On March the 13th, that inspection was done by the state. That was out of Houston or Tyler? MR. WARNER: Houston. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: That was done out of Houston. Prior, two inspections had been done at the landfill , correct? MR. WARNER: Yes , sir. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: And, the results from those inspections were . . . . . . ? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 16 MR. WARNER: The latest inspections were . . . . . . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Not the latest. Prior to . . . . . . MR. WARNER: Prior to the March inspection was done in November of 187 and we in satisfactory compliance with the TDH regulations . other . . . there were some minor issues that they had pointed out in their letter, but it stated that we were in satisfactory compliance . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: okay, and we received a letter in May stating that we were in violation, correct? MR. WARNER: Yes , sir. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL : And, at that time, they requested that we request extensions to take care of the problem? MR. WARNER: That was one of the options, yes , sir, is that we were to come into compliance or that we could ask for an extension. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: And, they stated that there would be another inspection following in June, correct . . . June 8th? MR. WARNER: I don' t recall if they actually stated in the letter there ' s was going to be an inspection, but there was an inspection on June 8th, yes , sir. COUNCILMA14 SAMUEL: Okay, I think that the letter that was sent to us stated that they would have another inspection. That leads to one of my questions . If they asked us to request an extension and it was stated that there would be another inspection, why is it if we had about a month, why was it we waited to two days before the inspection before we requested an extension? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28, 1988 Pace 17 MR. WARNER: The Health Department operates through the regional office in Houston. There ' s a regional office in Houston. The letter that we received in May went . . was from their Austin office . Their enforcement letters come out of their Austin office. The reply was sent to their Austin office which took time for them to turn it around to Houston. I will say to this date we have yet to hear a reply from them on the ninety day extension. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL : Okay, but we sent that . . . we sent the request for an extension on June the 6th, correct? MR. WARNER: Yes , sir. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: That was about two days before the last inspection. MR. WARNER: Yes , sir. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Okay. The other question, with the inception of the slur markers and the wet weather operational plan, did the other violations . . were they all related to field cover? MR. WARNER: The inspection of the June on June 8th either had to do with . . . without omitting the slur markers SLER markers either dealt with the intermediate cover or the final cover. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL : Okay. So, they were all related to cover? MR. WARNER: Yes , sir. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: When did we become aware that there was going to be a shortage of cover? Were we aware of this going into the budget of last year? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28, 1988 Page IS MR. WARNER: What we were proposing to do is to mine everything on site , that we would take all our dirt off the site and use it as cover material . For reasons of weather where we can' t excavate, there could be shortages we ' re not able to go the depth that we had originally planned, even poor management at the landfill could have resulted in not having daily cover placed. COUNCILMAN--SAMUEL : But, when did we become aware that there was a shortage of fill cover? MR. WARNER: I 'm not sure . . . I don' t mean to try to evade the question, I 'm not sure we have . . . there is material available on site to use for cover. We -01 have not mined that so therefore we don' t have a shortage . We have not had adequate stockpiles of dirt available for daily cover. Going back through the records , I would have to say probably February . . January or February of this year. —COUNCILMAN MOORE : Trim, " om let me ask you this question, then. I brought the issue up well over a month ago and asked specifically were we doing proper covering of . our garbage or trash at the landfill and ask that you look into it . I guess the thing that really bothers me about this is that this was before I knew anything about any letter, I don' t think any other member of Council knew anything about any letter, simply because I was getting c3 11s lls as well as went out in my community expected it a4%.d there was an extremely strong odor which ch we' ve talked about . Why dT5dn' t we then go out and make sure that we were covering the garbage adequately then and why did we have to wait to get a report back that says we are not doing our job? MR. WARNER: In the March inspection, we were operating in Section 300 of the landfill . when we were told regarding the . . excuse me, the intermediate cover in the letter, the March letter or the inspection in March, we were told that it was section 300 in which intermediate cover needed to be placed and that final cover needed to be placed in Section 200 . We . . . in reviewing the operation of the landfill , we found out that we still had air space available in Section 200 so we completed in putting intermediate cover on Section 300 and went back into Section 200 to utilize all the air space that was available . When they came and did the inspection in June, it was because we did not have daily cover in Section 200 , not 300 . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 19 COUNCILMAN MOORE : Well , one other comment I have is somewhat contrary to what Councilman Cokinos stated about saving $195 , 000 . 1 want to make sure that whatever it takes we do it to insure the health of the people who live out there in the neighborhood. We have an extremely high density of people living in public housing. we have a YMCA facility where kids are active all day and that is extremely close to this location. So, I guess I am quite contrary to the Council in that regards simply because whatever it takes , let ' s get it done and, sir, I hope your company is going to do the Job you were telling us about today here at Council because it is a very important issue to me and I think it is a very dangerous situation out there . It' s been on-going. 'MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Yes , sir. It , is to us . This is our business and we live by what we do and the environmental compliance that we all must by abide by are getting ever more strict and''we are endeavoring to accomplish with the • resources available the compliance of this site as soon as possible. We will be giving progress reports to staff and Council on the activity. I imagine the first issue that will be coming up again that the Council will be involved with is specifically what compliance order will you propose to the TDH and I suspect that will be within a couple weeks period of time. And, that' ll be the frame work for the plan. That ' ll have bench marks or pegs that indicate progress steps and whether we are accomplishing them or not . And, we don' t feel uncomfortable at all being held accountable to that. COUNCILMAN COKINOS: I 'm also concerned about the health and welfare oft 'the people of Beaumont and at the same time I 'm just trying to find N solution where we ' ll be able to possibly save some money but isn' t it true that the letter was sent to Austin or Houston. It wasn' t sent to the right place for the extension? MR. WARNER: The May 11th letter that we received was sent to us from Austin. We replied to Austin for the extension . COUNCILMAN COKINOS : But it wasn' t . . . it should have been someplace . . . it should have been sent someplace else, wasn' t it for the extension? As I recall from a memorandum that I had gotten . . . ? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28, 1988 Page 20 MR . WARNER: My interpretation is that the enforcement division of the TDH is in Austin and we responded to the enforcement division. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : But they came back and said you sent it to the wrong office and that ' s the reason we didn' t get the extension? MAYOR MEYERS: No. MR. WARNER: To my knowledge, I 've never received such letter or have been notified of that . . of that fact . MAYOR MEYERS : What other questions are there? COUNCILMAN SMITH: I don' t have any questions but I have a comment . In all of this what Mr . Warner says , it seems to me that we have taken . . . in the City we ' ve taken a lacksadaisical attitude about this landfill . We ' ve not . . . you ' ve known that we were not in compliance . I went out there and discussed it . It' s a mess . It' s literally a mess and I think that we ' ve got to do something. If we need someone to come in and tell us how to do this but we certainly do need to address this . It . . . these things are difficult for me to understand, but we' ve known we were not operating in compliance. MAYOR MEYERS : I think we had some other comments , here, questions? COUNCILMAN] BRUMLEY: Somebody made . . . I 'm not sure, somebody made the indication about budgeting and mining as a part of this budget, our existing budget. We weren' t prepared to mine . . . what was budgeted as far as fill for the landfill? Was it take outside fill and bring it into the landfill? MR. WARNER: No, the way that the budget was set up, we have an excavation/disposal area. The excavation group mines all the dirt that we felt that we would need for daily cover. They would then, it would then be transported to the working face and be covered . . the working face be covered on a daily basis . The only outside material .that we felt like we would have to purchase would be for materials used to maintain the roadways , those type of facilities . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 21 COUNCILMAN BRUMLEY: Okay. He ' s talking about ten dump trucks and mining equipment . Is that . . . those ten dump trucks and that mining equipment, were they purchased for doing what he is saying that they need to be used for in these next few weeks? MR. WARNER: No, those pieces of equipment . . the trucks specifically are out of our operations division and the drainage section. COUNCILMAN BRUMLEY: - Okay, what happens to these other programs while we ' ve got dump trucks filling landfill - I know no one ' s ever told me about buying the dump trucks for mining purposes . . . or they probably did or might have, but I don' t remember buying a dump truck for strictly mining which . . . My point is these pieces are for other operating purposes in the City. What happens to those? We can' t shut it down for'this area. All this is leading to the point that we are talking about . . . to me we are talking about something much more than $15 , 000 as a consultant and something that is major expenditure of the City both on short term not counting a lead time into an 1989 budget year and it ' s done and I haven' t had meetings and I haven' t been . . . but it seems to me that it ' s been done over a real short period of time to make a very big long term decision, I guess is the easiest way for me to put it . CITY MANAGER: Councilman, as I understand it, and, Tom, you correct !r *if I 'm wrong, the landfill does have two trucks , is that right? MR. WARNER: Four. CITY MANAGER: Four trucks , okay. It has four trucks that work the landfill and those pieces of equipment essentially . . . the theory was that those pieces of equipment would be able to handle the daily cover and keep everything current and above board. That didn' t happen. we are looking at 300, 000 cubic yards of cover material in order to bring those two cells into compliance under the provisions of the Health Department ' s permit that we have . What we have been doing since the . . . since Bankston has been out there and did the minimal work at $3 . 35 a yard, Tom has had equipment out there supplementing the work and they have been hauling if you will this cover from the landfill using drainage and streets trucks . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28, 1988 Page 22 CITY MANAGER continued: As Imri said in his presentation, the one thing that we have to take into account, we don' t know what that cost is going to be, is the cost in terms of lost service in our other divisions if we continue to keep equipment and manpower on the . . . at the landfill doing the work and whether or not it ' s more cost effective to contract it with an operator. And, those numbers we have not completed or working up yet . But, I am convinced that it is going to be cheaper than $3 . 35 a cubic yard. MR. SZEKELYHIDI : The basic issue, if I may expand upon your answer, sir, is that you are dealing with a historical problem that you are trying to correct. The historical problem is a fixed quantity of material that has to be addressed. MAYOR MEYERS : Historical , where? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : In the sense of intermediate and final cover . . . MAYOR MEYERS : I know, but, historical as it relates to our City or as it relates to landfill across America? CITY MANAGER: He' s talking about our city. MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Well, I 'm only talking about this site and you have 300, 000 yards of material that has to be moved and placed. The key is a compliance order that you can negotiate and a time that is allowed to place that material . Now, there is a systematic process one goes through in its placement that mitigates near term and long term and environmental effects minimally such as you place over the entire footprint of these two cells the one foot of intermediate cover. That gets you kosher on that amount of activity but you are still not compliant with the requirement to close the cells . But, you can do that in a systematic manner. The four dump trucks , two articulated dump trucks and two auto- cars and the backhoe that ' s out there properly operated can move over 2000 to 3000 yards of material a day. on a day-to-day basis , if the landfill is properly operated, you are only needing 250 cubic yards a day but - you' ve got to catch up so the key is how do you catch up? Do you catch up by dedication of all this equipment? Right now, it' s a show of good faith to the State. Or, do you catch up in a systematic manner that you do it with existing equipment on site which I think is doable and sellable or do you go outside and hire the services to be performed by a contractor such as Bankston? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28, 1988 Page 2.3) COUNCILMAN SAMUEL : Are we including the contingencies for down time on the vehicles that are presently in the landfill? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : I think you have excess equipment capability to take care of all routine construction , operation, and drainage issues . The key issue that ' s facing us is how do we get compliant and right now some of your equipment is breaking. It ' s working a lot harder than it has in a while I suspect . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: And, we are talking about working it a lot harder than it' s presently being worked, too, right? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : For a while. COUNCILMAN MOORE : Your assessment of the situation that internally we can do it as quickly as anyone else coming in to do it right now by utilizing our own manpower and equipment? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Proper management is the key criterion, sir. If propertdnagement were existent, you wouldn' t have had the problem. If proper management were available, it wouldn' t be a problem in the future and you wouldn' t be facing these concerns and yes , I agree, with proper management, a good operation can be effected whether it public or private. COUNCILMAN MOORE : Right now, our own situation presently using our own equipment and our own manpower, can we do it in the most time effective manner? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : With the management I think that we are proposing for you, I think you can, provided we can negotiate a timely compliance order that gives you the room to do that. That' s the key. COUNCILMAN COKINOS: And, if we don' t? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 24 MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Then, we are back to consideration of significant capital expenditures . COUNCILMAN SMITH: Do we have the equipment out there to compact down to 1800 . . . ? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Yes , sir, you do, _ma ' am. COUNCILMAN SMITH: You don' t have to buy any extra equipment to do that? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : No. We . . . the facility that we have nearest here is in Conroe, Texas , and we are a regional fill and we dispose of about 1300 tons a day of solid waste and 2 . . to 300 tons a day of industrial waste . We employ one compactor and that compactor is the same compactor you have . It ' s a Caterpillar 8260. It may not be the tame year of series but it is essentially the same machine. The key again is the manner that the overall landfill is operated, the traffic control, the placement of the waste in a confined area and of course its compaction effort . If you' ve been out there, you' ve seen that your working face is effectively the entire landfill . COUNCILMAN SMITH: Yes, I ' ve been out there. MR. SZEKELYHIDI : 4 " And, that does not lend itself to proper waste placement ' The two times that we came down as a prelude to our proposal this past Friday and looked at your operations over the course of an entire day each time, and we commented over many things that we thought- that you immediately ought to go do, which the staff was very obliging and I think it' s helped, we saw earth-moving equipment like dozers placing garbage, the compactor spreading dirt, clay - totally inefficient use, wrong use of the equipment. As a matter of fact it ' s potentially damaging to the compactor. The compactor is not properly constructed and torqued to move clay materials for cover placement. It should be . . . . . . COUNCILMAN MAN MOORE : How long ago was this? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Last Wednesday and Thursday. EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 25 MAYOR MEYERS : I 've got to stop and interrupt you along the way because I 'm getting too many questions . You say immediately ought to do from what you saw. Was that immediately to do in regards to the July 6th meeting with the officials or to remedy the circumstance there on a permanent basis for the future? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Neither. Just to get you in business as soon as possible. The basic issue is that in Cell No. 3 , you are 12 feet over your final contour elevation. That is a major violation of your permit . You have buried hundreds of thousands of yards of material illegally. You are also, on Cell No. 3 , outside the confines on your footprint at the ground level of waste placement. That' s in violation of your permit . That ' s not even noted in the enforcement letter but it is clearly noted because of where the landfill is and your survey marks so that needs to be secured and gotten out of everybody' s mental eye so that you don' t have that problem to worry with. The issues that I recommended to the staff out there when we were out there is that you had new areas of cell construction that has not yet been SLERred, SLERred being "soil and liner evaluation reported" and accepted by the State. In talking to the staff, it was assumed that these reports which were prepared some weeks before had been sent off. They had not. So, I told them, please send them . They sent them. They got approval . The problem is that everyone of these new cells had 4 , 5, 6 feet of water in them, just from rainfall and storm water drainage that intruded. I told them the first thing you all need to do is to get everyone of those pumped down and keep them dry because you effect the integrity, technical integrity of the liner when you have standing water on it, but, more importantly, that' s where you need to be placing garbage because you have expended all of your allowable air space in cell Numbers 2 and 3 or 200 an 100 . So, that was the immediate course of action that they took and X.at was just to get you in business today or yesterday. And, we started operations there yesterday. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: What department is responsible for SLERring and marking? MR. WARNER: That work is done by our engineering staff. The lab work is done by and outside company and it is submitted to the Health Department. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Okay, what department is responsible for determining the amount of excavation needed to provided adequate fill? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 26 MR. WARNER: That is a determination that is made from the soil testing that is done with the SLER markings . They have to do soil testing to determine where the water table is before we determine the depth of excavation. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Maybe I ' m not asking the question in the right manner. When we made the determination in the budget how much cover fill would be needed and we looked at excavation to provide some of this fill cover, who' s responsible for determining how much excavation was fill to provide adequate fill dirt? MR. WARNER: That would be the Sanitation Manager. COUNCILMAN MOORE : That' s with your approval as well, Tom? MR. WARNER: That would go through the normal budgeting process . I typically do not go through back and verify item for item budget submittals s that are prepared by division managers, only things that appear to be out of line . COUNCILMAN MOORE : But, you should be aware if we have a pressing problem, right? 44 " MR. WARNER: I should be aware, yes, sir. MAYOR MEYERS: You mentioned a couple of things I need to come back to, violations you spoke to earlier and I was curious over what period of time? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : That ' s very difficult to assess without . . . . . . MAYOR MEYERS : Some of the things, I am sure, based on the activity there in the worst scenario or- best scenario have a . . . . . . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 27 MR. SZEKELYHIDI : some of them go back probably a couple of years . As an example, Cell No. 300, where you are 12 feet over contour elevation, that is not an activity that has been taking place in the last year, year and a half . I don' t believe there' s any waste activity been taking place there . And, there was no final cover placed. so, you have two acts of violations that are very major and they could hit you for each day that those violations were in effect that you didn' t resolve the issue . So, you have the over-filling and you have the lack of intermediate and final cover placement. The area (Cell ) 200 was very close to final contour elevation and, from what we ' ve seen on some of the survey marks , you' ve exceeded it in a few areas very minutely. Final cover placement will absolutely exceed, but these are issues that are not of a significant concern to the State because they don' t really materially impact the environmental degradation that may result from that activity; but, they are violations and they are indicative of general management concepts and performances . MAYOR MEYERS : So, between the period of November 5 or whatever it was 1987 and March 11th, what would have caused the Department of Health to site that landfill that wouldn' t have caused them to find the same circumstance November 5th? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : You have different administrations . The Tyler office was vacant for about a two and one-half year period of an inspector st *for two and a half years , you had probably no inspections . The inspection that you had in November was likely one that was spaced for quite some time . The level of inspection also varies between one individual and another. They have a routine inspection form but they do not always go out and look for everything that is potentially in violation or right about a facility at all times . I suspect that if things looked sort of right to the fellow that day, he didn' t write you up, but the activity of that waste placement on Cell 300 had to be accomplished over a rather significant period of time . A lot more than the eight months we are talking about and so, just because they didn' t catch you at it doesn' t make it that you didn' t do it. MAYOR MEYERS : You mentioned also that . . . it was earlier so I can' t bring it in exact context - coming back to recommend to Council final action? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 28 MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Various actions will we feel be to your understanding and education as well as there are specific things that you should consider to do. The first one is , again, what kind of compliance negotiation and order will you agree to and that will have economic consequences more than anything. Whether, one, you have to pay an administrative penalty? That ' s one . And, two, what is the cost of compliance? Getting to the point that they want you to be . So, there ' s a lot of give and take here and we . . . it is part of our job to provide for you our best professional information as to what you want to suggest and the program that you ought to layout and what its associated costs are going to be , irrespective to which one you elect to pursue . That may or may not require additional funding. Personally, you have the people and you 4, have equipment, if we can secure a timely compliance order, to do the work that ' s necessary on site . Other than that you will be facing certainly equipment repair expense because the equipment is not going to work some which is hard to quantify today. We will attempt to do that as part of our work. We will do an assessment for you of your equipment, what equipment needs to stay, what equipment needs to be replaced and the equipment that does stay, what needs to be done to it to get it up to into top performing condition. And, that will be utilized by Staff I am sure for whatever budgetary purposes are necessary. The long term goal again is in the post-90 day, what do you all do with this disposal activity out there? Do you want to maintain the existing site development which we think is highly inefficient and not to the long term interest of the community and is not as environmentally secure in all honesty that you could make it because you have very many problems with post closure maintenance of that site as opposed to if it were redesigned. Those kinds of concepts we are going suggest to you and give you specific pros and cons and economic and cost benefit analyses . That ' s a part of our scope of work and it will be up to you to elect which way you'd like to go. So, that over the course of this year, I suspect we will making various reportp ', to you and recommendations and suggestions on things that you needTto consider and act .upon. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : Then, what you are saying the proposal that you are making to this City Council is going to be of a permanent nature and solution and not a bandaid? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Absolutely. A bandaid will only address your problems today and may not deal with the material issues that are present today and the long term. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : And, excuse me, go ahead, go ahead. MR. SZEKELYHIDI : I 'm done . I get long winded sometimes . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28, 1988 Page 29 COUNCILMAN COKINOS : Okay. Then . . then if we follow your recommendation and all, your proposals , what are you looking at as far as the City' s spending? Ballpark? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : I wish I could tell you today. Well , it depends . . . the first issue again is what do you have to do to get compliant, either short term or long term? I feel that we can get you to an agreed order that you can work with existing personnel and equipment, without having to borrow street and bridge people very materially long. If we do it with on-site equipment, and that equipment survives the work effort, then you can probably more or less live within your budget. There should be no more personnel required, no less personnel required; no more equipment, no less equipment. You have the capability and assets to do the job. The second issue is what do you want to do long term and if you elect to modify your permit to optimize that landfill ' s development so that it takes care of this community' s needs post 20 years there will be a schedule of activities and it' s associated cost recommendations for your consideration and what are the benefits that you would derive for that expense . Thai expense is primarily engineering and legal expense for repermitting and then if it is permitted then for the construction. But, again, the construction that we invisioning can be done with what capability you have . It would be a modification of the way you develop the landfill, but you have to have permit approval to do that . And, I 'm not trying to dodge your question but it all depends on what program you want to go to and I can' t tell you that today because we haven' t laid it out . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: One last question. MAYOR MEYERS: Please . I suggest you ask as many have . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: I don' t know where . . the validity of this . I understand there are some problems with the Nederland landfill and it' s possible that that landfill could close. How is that . . . how would that impact our landfill operation, if any? MR. WARNER: That is one of the issues that Council will have to decide. Currently, we are . . . although we may call ourselves a local landfill , we are operating on a regional basis . Council will have to make that decision at a later date whether we want to remain a regional landfill or strictly serve the Beaumont community. EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL .SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1.988 Page 30 COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Is that valid that it' s a high possibility that that landfill will be closed? MR. WARNER: It ' s my understanding that they have been told that they are to close the landfill . CITY MANAGER: In fact, they' ve contacted us already. MAYOR MEYERS : The mention of regional , is that because those who come are charged? we discussed that some time ago strenuously when we expressed displeasure with the fact that people were coming from around the region and coming in and using our 'Landfill . I didn' t think there was a question about the regional question of the use of that landfill versus the community. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : I think it was the price, wasn' t it? MAYOR MEYERS: Well , no, we . . . that was part of the discussion but I guess if we need to bring that back quickly . . . CITY MANAGER: That will be part of the budget . . . . . . MAYOR MEYERS : Is it . . . or would it be your company' s . . . let me ask two questions . Your company would provide what over this next . . . aside from the expertise and information, in the form of people? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : We have an individual that is on site now. He is our most experienced landfill manager. He has not only worked on projects locally but in four other states for western and a number of other locations . MAYOR MEYERS : So, he is a landfill manager. EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 31 MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Yes , sir, with a great deal of experience and so he is the main person on the job. He will be there opening to closing every day during the term of this agreement . That' s the minimum on-site commitment we make . On an as-needed basis for planning, for negotiation, for fiscal calculation and budgeting purposes , there are other people within the company that are . . . and legal services in the sense that we might suggest to you in the negotiation process or the permitting process through our counsel what are the steps one does so they could converse with Mr. Nichols about that . There are people within the waste disposal services group, myself included, who will be involved on a day-to-day basis . The manager that we have here, Lloyd Johnson, reports to me directly. He is my employee and we are always in communication with all of our employees virtually every day, numerous times a day. That ' s one of the things "I' do and we work out a maxi scope of work and then a mini scope of work everyday and see that it is accomplished. MAYOR MEYERS : On completion of the twelve months , it would be yoqr desire to maintain in a relationship with the city and operate that landfill . I mean is that . . . . . . MR . SZEKELYHIDI : I would be less than candid if I said anything different, yes , sir, but that ' s not in the contract to date and I think I would also be less than candid that if we didn' t do you a good job, , you wouldn' t give us the time of day so, it is in our interest if there is any potential consideration long term that we do you one heck of a good piece of work. 4 " COUNCILMAN COKINOS: I know you . . . S MAYOR MEYERS: I have one more thing . . . not given an emergency situation, would question of operation of the landfill like might be facing us a year from now, would that have been brought to Council . . . CITY MANAGER: Yes , it would. MAYOR MEYERS: . . . as a policy issue? CITY MANAGER: No, it would have been . . . the management side of it would have been brought to Council as I understand it, Lane, for approval . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 MAYOR MEYERS : I am saying hypothetically that void of an emergency situation, we were going to be presented information relative to a management firm operating the landfill as opposed to our own personnel , would that be a Council . . . . . . CITY ATTORNEY: Yes, my advice on that has been that the management perspective of this contract, although it might not have to be bid, absent the emergency nature of it would be Council ' s call . COUNCILMAN COKINOS : Why don' t . . . I know you probably don' t want to hear this , but, why doesn' t the City go ahead and hire a landfill manager at a much lower price and let him come in and take over? Why do we have to go hire a firm to tell us what to do? I mean that ' s what they' re doing. They have a landfill manager. Why can' t we go out and hire one - not at $15 , 000 a month, maybe a little bit cheaper? CITY MANAGER: The reason we didn' t do that, Councilman, was because we feel that we are confronting a situation that is frankly inexcusable and we don' t have time to recruit and interview and take the time to do that . We . . . MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Additionally, sit, if I may in out defense, we are not hiring or suggesting that we ' re employing solely a manager; you are employing a company with all the expertise attendant . COUNCILMAN COKINOS : well , I know . . . ,I I know that.. Yalll probably yalll may be excellent . Yall' may be great; but I am saying why don' t 'L the City hire a manager like they are hiring someone to run the landfill at a much cheaper price? CITY MANAGER: That certainly is something that we intend. . . we would intend to look at during the course of the next twelve months and recommend to Council whether or not we should formally solicit an on- going management contract with the private sector as we are doing now or say, thank you, and hire our own person. We don*t . . . again, my conclusion and I want you to know this was not done ' . . . it was done hastily but not without regard for I think whatever our alternatives and best alternatives were . We are in non-compliance . We have been derelict in the operation and the oversight of that landfill . We have neither the capacity to oversee it if we had hired somebody tomorrow to run it, nor do we have the ability to, in my opinion, to bring ourselves into compliance in a cost-effective manner. And, it was my decided opinion that our choice . . our best choice was to go with a private sector firm who had the experience and the expertise and the resources to bring us into compliance, resolve our permitting problems and perhaps more importantly to really look at that limited resource , that landfill itself that we all will agree a few months ago were told had only 10 years life and see if in fact we can bring that back to where it ought to be and make those tough decisions . COUNCILMAN COKINOS: This morning, I heard it was seven .years . . . . . . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 33 COUNCILMAN SMITH: It was seventeen years . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: Mr. manager, let me ask this . MAYOR MEYERS: Speak into the mike, please. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL : Other than . . . okay, he ' s mentioned that we have adequate equipment and we have adequate materials available to bring our landfill into an operation that would be . . .would be good operations . What is it that this firm has done or has told us that any competent manager could not have told us? CITY MANAGER: In terms of the management and operation of the 'Landfill , probably nothing, Councilman, but I frankly would have to say that I haven' t met a competent manager of a landfill here and to take that . . . to make the effort to recruit for one would cost us valuable time relative to the compliance question that we' re under . COUNCILMAN SAMUEL : Aren' t there consultants that could have been hired as a manager of the landfill? If we' ve identified the problem areas, we identified the fact that we hadn' t been doing the excavation that was adequate to bring about the fill , we identified that we were out of . . . out of line as far as the height of cells . Aren' t these some things that w-fdould have got gotten a consultant to manage? CITY MANAGER: That' s effectively what we' re doing, Councilman. COUNCILMAN SAMUEL: For $15 , 000 . . . are you saying . . . $15 , 000 per month we would have had to pay an individual to come in and run the landfill? CITY MANAGER : We are doing . . . Councilman, it is more than running a landfill that we are asking their services• for, substantially more than that. I don' t know what the component of the $15 ,000 is to run it, Councilman, but there are two issues that are far more over-riding than the question of daily cover and taking care of what ought to be done day-to-day there and those two questions have to do with our . . the need and the capacity to bring us into compliance and secondly how we can better manage that facility and again it was our conclusion that we had to move and we had to move decisively on it. EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 34 COUNCILMAN COKINOS : I feel that what you did was the easy way. I still say that we can go out and . . . are you going . . . do you intend to advertise for landfill manager? If you do, let ' s start now. CITY MANAGER: Probably not for a while . I don' t know what your feelings are, Tom. MR . WARNER: The first thing that we are going to do, Councilman, is that we need to get back onto the right track and get into compliance with the TDH. As the Manager indicated, I think that the hiring process is not going to be a thirty day turn around. We' re probably talking at least three months to find a manager. my immediate attention is now being directed toward what we have to do to get into compliance, get passed the Health Department. At that time, I will proceed with looking at the . . . looking at hiring and advertising for a landfill manager. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : You say you never have seen a good 'Landfill manager? CITY MANAGER: Not in Beaumont, sir. COUNCILMAN COKINOS: Well . CITY MANAGER: And to recruit and to hire a position as Tom mentioned .would call a turn around time of a minimum of 90 days from the time we post the job to the time it' s filled, a minimum of 90 days . COUNCILMAN COKINOS : What I was . . . what I was trying to do, while you've hired this consultant firm, let' s bring in a landfill manager and . . . so he can work in conjunction with . . with these people have been hired for so that he can just go right in with the pattern. This is . . . I mean, you know . . . This concerns me . MAYOR MEYERS: Have you worked under contracts of a shorter period than a year? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 35 MR. SZEKELYHIDI : The most recent one was in Marian County, Florida, and that particular incident this was last year and that contract concluded in December of 187 . The County there had a 'Lill in size of about Boo tons a day. it was under contract to a Florida firm, private firm. The private firm had significantly mismanaged that "Landfill and its assessed contributed through its operations which were from day one to a rather large amount of.L ground water contamination and it' s going to be a multi-million dollar remediation program. That site doesn' t have the benefit of clays like your site . It ' s nothing but sand out there on top of limestone . we came in there on a 3-day advance notice, and in that particular instance we brought in personnel and equipment in its entirety, replaced the existing complement of people that were there and developed a program not terribly dissimilar to what we are proposing to do here today. In that instance, the County elected to take the program back on, primarily, it is our opinion, because of political considerations with the grief that they' d got over the years with the previous management . That ' s our risk. This is not the only case; that' s the most recent one . In Montgomery County, four years ago, we closed on behalf of the County their permitted landfill under contract . That ' s a Texas example . We have certainly closed and operated our own facilities . we have closed facilities in California, Arkansas and Florida . All the other ones were our own facilities . MAYOR MEYERS: How long were you on that first one you mentioned where you came in . . . ? MR. SZEKELYHIDI: Marian County? Nine months to the day. It was a 9-mwnt'h' contract in that -particular instance; but, it had a different scoP6 of work in all honesty. And, in our packet that we gave you, sir, we have references of all the facilities we've ever operated, all the people we' ve dealt with contracturally as a public company. Again, I reiterate, about 47 percent of our annual revenues are . . . . . . MAYOR MEYERS : I have every confidence that the Manager would have checked out you quality. I 'm thinking more from the standpoint of choice, not questioning your ability or quality. Let' s see, we started this item E. 9 . That was the confirmation of the emergency purchase order for clay for the landfill and to be sure and satisfy all questions relative to that subject we' ve opened it up for all questions pertinent so I would ask at this time if Council has any other questions at all relative to this subject that they would want to ask at this time? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD "'UNE 28 , 1988 Page 36 COUNCILMAN UMAN BRUMLEY: The only question I have as it relates to this . . . MAYOR MEYERS : Is your mike on, Mike? COUNCILMAN BRUMLEY : No. The only question I have as it relates to this specific action, were the . . . what were the steps that were taken in the . . . in issuing the emergency purchase order as it -relates to contacts of individuals other than . . . if there was other than Bankston Construction Company? MRS . DUNKERLEY: To review very briefly how any emergency purchase order is issued, the Department Director who is involved with the purchase normally contacts the Finance Director or Finance office and tells us the nature of the emergency and what their recommendations are . Normally, they you know secured some prices and costs and . . so that we know sort of in advance . . . they' ve given us warning of what ' s coming forth . We ask them to then prepare a written memo for us stating the nature of the emergency and normally we run thl' s by the City Manager to get 'his approval because it is something that would have to come to Council and that then is attached to the back of the emergency order. In this paiticular instance, I in fact was not here that day so maybe I could refer the balance of this to Tom Warner. I can tell you that in conversation with other dealers the particular one that we had a contract with would not take the fill to the top of the landfill and his contract related to just bringing any fill on site and leaving it at the base of the . . at the landfill , so that was confirmed and in fact this Mr. Bankston would take it to the top and would spread it and the other company that we had the contract with would not . So, perhaps, Mr . Warner, if you can comment further . . . . . . MR . WARNER: Yes , on the purchase with Bankston, we received a quote from Mr. Bankston for not only the delivery . . . the cost of the dirt, the delivery and for spreading the material . The current contract we have , yearly contract for the purchase of material as Mrs . Dunkerley said would not carry it to the working face. I believe that other firms were contacted, although at this time I don' t know who . . . what firms were contacted or their price . COUNCILMAN BRUMLEY: when you contact a firm, I assume it' s like taking something on an ( indiscernible) who was contacted at what price they gave the City as it relates to this particular order. I understand it' s already been taken place but I want to make sure we had other people contacted and that there' s some documentation that says we contacted Smith Construction and there' s was $4 . 35 a cubic yard and whatever the case might be . EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 37 MR . WARNER: I ' ll have to check an that, sir. COUNCILMAN BRUMLEY: Okay. COUNCILMAN COKINOS: How long will this 15 , 000 cubic yards last? COUNCILMEN LEE AND BRUMLEY: It' s gone . MR. WARNER: It' s gone . It ' s already been delivered. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : So, we' re going to have to order some more, huh? MR. WARNER: No, sir. It' s been delivered and spread and the next process is to get with Western Waste and determine which alternative is best to get the remaining material needed for final cover, whether that be mined on site • or brought from off-site . • MAYOR MEYERS: I think the seriousness of the issue was stated earlier by the manager so I think everybody recognizes that and the question in pursuit of information goes hand and hand with everybody' s recognition that it' s an important subject including yourselves and the question I 'm going to ask is particularly important to me, so I ' d like you give it every serious consideration in your answer. The meeting on lily 6th, and if , you want to get some additional opinions , as it relat6s to the Health Department, what are they looking for? Results, as it relates to what we ' ve completed in this short time frame or knowledge that we ' ve brought forward that suggests that we have a plan and the ability to execute? What do you feel they are looking for? Are they looking for folks who have hurried around and done a lot of work or are they looking for people who now are indicating they know what they are doing? Is that a judgment that you can render? CITY MANAGER: I 'm not sure . . . I can only give you my sort of hip-shot thinking on it and I think it may be a combination of the two. Tom, I think I ' d like to ask Imri to respond because he has worked with the State on various permitting questions before and perhaps get your thought. I EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 38 MR. SZEKELYHIDI : Yes , sir. We 've had experiences with a number of jurisdictions other than Texas but more particularly in Texas since we ' ve had more facilities here . Generally speaking, they are looking for ultimately you being in compliance with the regulations . okay. That is going to take time to accomplish. You cannot do that tomorrow morning. No physical , financial feat will accomplish that. So, the next thing they do is they work out with you an agreed schedule of activities that make good env--ironmental sense . Economic considerations are not always taken into the equation, not at least on -the face of it. They do come into play and generally speaking public sector operators have historically been given a lot more grace than private sector operators . If Western had been in trouble like this , rest assured we would be facing rather substantial administrative fines and wouldn' t have our day in court . We ' d be in jail . That ' s one difference, so that' s to your benefit. So, what they are looking for is resolution, ultimately, of your compliance issues and a methodology of management that they feel comfortable with will not have a recurrence of these issues, whether that ' s with existing staffing that you may have or secure to have in the future or some kind of a public/private operation joint venture or a total privatization of your management facilities . That ' s the ultimate goal . There is getting to be in this state and many other states an enhanced concern at the regulatory level that you do have professional people running waste management facilities that can demonstrate experience and background. This state is a fore . . . leader of that activity. There ' s a requirement which I don' t know if you all are compliant with that you have certified managers on site. I haven' t looked into that . That ' s a potential violation if you haven' t had them. That goes back to when ever you didn ' t have them. I don' t believe they are going to worry about that particularly. They' re worried about you getting that landfill covered properly and deal with the drainage issues that contribute to surface and ground water contamination potentials . so, I think as the manager said, I think it ' s a combination of both . It' s not that` you ultimately yourselves cannot deliver it. Today, I don' t beliKe you have the capability in all honesty. In the future, it' s certainly possible. MAYOR MEYERS: What other questions are there? MR. SZEKELYHIDI : I 'm available at any time to meet with you folks and I ' ll be more than happy to answer your questions and I appreciate your time, today. MAYOR MEYERS : Thank you for your comments . Is there any other discussion? We are at this point back to the confirmation of an emergency purchase order for clay for the landfill . That is the only issue, I believe, that we have legal obligation to vote on at this time . Is that correct? EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 39 CITY ATTORNEY: That' s correct . MAYOR MEYERS : Did we have a motion or a second? No, okay. Do you have anything else to add on that item? CITY MANAGER: One comment. First, we would expect to be back to a workshop with Council in . . on the meeting cf the 12th of July relative to the status of the landfill and what' s been happening with the Department of Health. And . . . I COUNCILMAN COKINOS: Do you intend to advertise for a landfill manager? CITY MANAGER: Not in the short term, Councilman. We are going to hold off . COUNCILMAN COKINOS : What do you mean by short term? ' CITY MANAGER: At least the next sixty days we' ll not be advertising? COUNCILMAN COKINOS: Over the long run? CITY MANAGER: Over the long run I 'm hopeful that we can. I'm hopeful that we would. COUNCILMAN COKINOS : Six months? CITY MANAGER: I think within six months we' ll be able to make the decision and certainly would be in a position to come to Council to discuss it. COUNCILMAN COKINOS: If you do, I 'd like for him to come aboard so he can take the benefit of the . . of the consulting firm. CITY MANAGER: Yes, that' s a good suggestion, Councilman, and we would like to do that . it makes a lot of sense to us that we go ahead and recruit while they are still here. EXCERPT FROM REGULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1988 Page 40 COUNCILMAN COKINOS : Do you see any objection in advertising . . . start advertising now? CITY MANAGER: I guess what we need to decide and decide with Council is whether or not we want to continue to do it in house or consider a public or privatization effort on this COUNCILMAN COKINOS : what would a landfill manager' s salary be per month? Do you have any idea? CITY MANAGER: What were we paying before, Tom? MR. WARNER: I believe the range is from $33 , 000 to $44 , 000 a year plus benefits . COUNCILMAN COKINOS : I didn' t understand you, Mr. Warner. MR. WARNER: I believe it' s $33 , 000 to $44 , 000, $45 , 000 a year plus ben,*fits . .COUNCILMAN COKINOS : Well, that' s a lot better than $195 , 000 . CITY MANAGER: The final . . . the final comment, Mayor, is that I would recommend approval of the resolution. MAYOR MEYERS: Okay, the discussion will� be cut off when you want to just cut it off. We have the issue before us, that being Item E . 10, for the confirmation of the emergency purchase order of clay for the landfill . Do we have any more questions or comments regarding that matter or this issue? If not, then, do we have a motion? I EXCERPT FROM REG-IULAR CITY COUNCIL SESSION HELD JUNE 28 , 1968 Page 41 COUNCILMAN MOORE : So move for approval . COUNCILMAN SMITH: Second. MAYOR MEYERS: We have a motion and a second. Any other questions or discussion? Those in favor, signify by saying Aye. (Ayes : councilmen Lee, Cokinos , Smith, Brumley, Samuel and Moore) . opposed? I 'm going to cast a dissenting vote as a voice that I would hope suggests a measure of displeasure . END OF EXCERPT.