HANSON – The Select Board voted, on Tuesday, March 14 to establish a task force to determine the direction for operations at the Transfer Station and the most economical way to dispose of trash, following a presentation by and discussion with Health Board Chair Melissa Pinnetti.
Pinnetti, Town Accountant Eric Kinscherf and Finance Committee Chair Michael Dugan, who have already been working on the issue, were officially named members of the task force.
Citing cost considerations and quotes from hauling firms, Pinnetti said there is a need to make the transfer station’s vital operation for residents more economical, especially for seniors, who cannot afford private trash hauling services. While no exact length of the task force’s work has been made, she said the hope is to have something prepared for the special Town Meeting in October.
“Significantly more than half the town does not utilize the transfer station, so that means they are paying for their trash to be handled some other way,” she said. “They are also paying through their taxes for funding the transfer station.”
Select Board member Joe Weeks pointed to the “substantial amount of folks in this town that are on fixed income and depend heavily on the transfer station.”
“What we’re trying to do right now is be able to gather other data to make informed decisions about what has the operational cost [been] over the past five to 10 years, and how can we use that to project into the future?” he said. “This is protecting the citizens, but also being able to stretch the tax dollar as far as we can possibly go and [use] it in a meaningful way.”
Weeks said the task force is necessary to allow town officials to hone in and try to figure out what kind of recommendations can be made to the town.
“We kind of need to get everybody’s input on this,” he said. “We want the town to be part of it.”
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said she liked the “cross-pollination” of the different groups working together.
“Everybody’s coming together, looking at what’s best for the town and cohesively making a recommendation, and I just love that,” she said.
Pinnetti was asked in September to have the Board of Health to outline ways to address long-standing budget issues at the transfer station. The town has issued 1,800 stickers, for a fee, to residents who use the transfer station.
“I know more about trash and transfer stations now than I thought I would,” she said in outlining what has been done in the interim and an article being presented to Town Meeting.
The contract for hauling and disposal of refuse from the transfer station had been expired for quite some time, Pinnetti said, causing recycling expenses to go in flux with the market since China stopped accepting bulk recycling shipments.
“We may have been paying much more than we needed to over those many years,” she said, adding that she and Health Agent Gil Amado had met with Waste Management officials about obtaining a quote for their services both at the transfer station and for town-wide pickup. She also requested a quote from E.L. Harvey out of Westborough, which now services the transfer station.
She called comparing the two quotes “eye-opening.”
The Health Board plans to enter a one-year contract with Harvey, which came in “substantially lower” with their quote than Waste Management. The cost for the rental compactors alone was about five times higher for WM than for Harvey, she said.
There has been a 23-percent increase in hauling and a 25-percent increase in the cost for equipment rental at the transfer station operating expenses from 2016 to now, according to Pinnetti. But it has been 116-percent higher for tipping fee for mainstream waste per ton in addition to the cost of getting rid of recycling.
“The overwhelming cost of operations comes from our hauling and municipal disposal,” Pinnetti said. “We started discussing in our meetings how we could tonnage of mainstream waste, which included the decision to open the Swap Shop, which seems to be a hit.”
Pinnetti said she hopes to see more residents “shopping” the Swap Shop as the weather improves in the spring.
“Kudos on that, Melissa,”FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “That was a great idea, and our thanks to the board for that, because it showed great initiative.”
Pinnetti also credited transfer station attendants for doing a great job in trying to deal with the frustrations involved in starting any such project from scratch, and said the Board of Health is looking to bringing on some volunteers to help run the Swap Shop on a long-term basis and has discussed grant opportunites with Claire Galkowski, executive director of the South Shore Recycling Cooperative to help improve transfer station operations, as well.
Pinnetti said he has also been reviewing the 2014 Town Meeting article that established the transfer station enterprise fund and revenue trends since.
“The wheels on this are going to turn very slowly,” said Dugan. “I’m not saying this will be the end result, but if this was something where you moved to curbside for the entire town, this is about a two-year project.”
Costs for any new equipment, including additional trucks and drivers a compnay might need, among other considerations would mean a longer ramp-up.
“Nothing is going to change today,” Dugan said. “Nothing is going to change a year from now. Quite frankly, we’re looking at a budget that is projecting $200,000 in revenue generated to support $420,000 worth of expenses.”
He said the town would be better off looking to other options, adding it may end up back in the same place, but it’s time to work on finding out what can and can’t be done, rather than just keep filling the revenue gap.
“At this point, because of the dynamics changing so significantly that really couldn’t have ever been predicted … I think it would be irresponsible for us not to explore other options,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I want to be super-clear that we will at all times take into consideration that we have employees working there and think about what their long-term impact would be and how we might best serve them, as well.”
Joe Weeks lauded the work Pinnetti, Dugan and Kinscherf have already done and sought to make clear that the presentation was in the interest of transparency, so the public can become involved and help brainstorm new ideas.
Select Board member Jim Hickey also pointed to the fuel costs, as diesel has remained high even while gas prices have come down a bit. He also asked for a ballpark figure for curbside pickup.
WM provided a quote of $1.5 million for the 3,800 homes using the service, based on comparable towns, but that a more specific figure would take a couple weeks to calculate.
Resident Frank Milisi said that estimate is comparable to what residents are paying for private hauling, about $112 per quarter, right now. He also said a 20-percent fuel surcharge had been added to the residential customers’ bills last quarter.
“I really want to emphasize that, whatever happens has to be affordable for those people that are not using curbside pickup,” Select Board member Ann Rein said. “And there’s a reason why. I don’t use curbside. I use the transfer station and I know many people my age and older who do the same thing, because it’s too expensive to have curbside pickup for us. … I’m afraid about my neighbors.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said she, also, is a transfer station user and loves that trash doesn’t have to sit around waiting to be picked up.
“But what I’ve heard these guys say, is they’re going to try to do a Herculean task to figure out what’s in the best interests of the entire town of Hanson,” she said. “We’ve got competing needs, we need cost-efficiencies, we want convenience, we don’t want to bankrupt anybody.”
In other business, Town Administrator Lisa Green updated the board on the progress Building Inspector Kerry Glass was making in obtaining the licensing credentials required by the state.
“He has been taking courses and has taken a couple of exams,” Green said. “I’m not sure if he’s found out whether he’s passed them or not.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked for a more through update at next week’s meeting.
Glass, who was on vacation, left a list of projects in town he has been overseeing with Green, who read them to the board.