Colebrook’s EEC Minutes
Meeting #4
1/8/08
Meeting Started at 7:05 PM and ended around 9:20 PM
Members Present: Marie Josee Vaillant, Chris Gueymard, David Belanger, Lenny Martell, Pierre Myron, Bob Soucy, Danielle Ruelland, Julie Moran
EEC Progress over the last Month
Two Energy Audits done: Lazer Works and Town Hall. Results are available to members.
Town Swimming Pool Water Heater: Several members checked out the Swimming Pool design and operation. The heat recovery system is the best available, and while the Energy cost is around $2500/month, the Pool is not in a position to do any alternative solutions at this time. EEC will shelf this project until another year.
Transfer Station, Landfill, and Waste Water Treatment Plant were toured: Notes were sent to the members.
Two Local Newspaper Articles published on Recycling: Both were available to members to read.
Tax Credit and Project Funding Information assembled: pages were copied or distributed to members as needed.
New Solar and Wind Power technology brochures were passed around for review.
EEC Mission Goals Clarification
How can we best provide information for residents to become “greener” and save money (in energy and environmental costs)? Ongoing discussions to refine ideas into accomplishable tasks.
Education of the Public
Central Repository of Energy-Related Materials: Discussed publishing resources and contact info into a three ring binder and placing in Public Library. Issues discussed of how much information to include, how to organize it, how to keep it in the library, and how to get people to act on that info.
Library Resources: Are subscriptions to Natural Energy or Mother Earth News magazines at the library?
Energy-Saving Resources:
KHEOPS offered to donate a book they sell, “365 Ways to Save the Planet” to the Colebrook library and School Library.
EEC Publicity: Get a Recycling page from the EEC into the Town Report.
News Publicity: Produce more newspaper articles written or compiled by all of us.
Spring Expo: Find information on Balsam’s Green Team planning and how EEC can contribute to that effort: displays, energy solutions, recycling info, workshops…
Need for Assistance to do projects – C. Gueymard and J. Moran discussed finding ways to help residents to install and afford cost-saving measures. Many cannot afford insulation, and are in heat- leaky older homes that would benefit greatly by simple and inexpensive measures. More discussion is needed to figure out how to reach those needing and wanting assistance, and how to meet the need. Writing for grants is being considered, especially to the Tillotson Fund. For now, Energy audits from the resident’s Electric provider is the first step, and a newspaper article is planned, once the EEC has established a working agreement with NHEC (in progress).
Discussions
NH State Property Tax Exemption from Towns - Currently, Columbia has this on their books, but Colebrook does not. The committee discussed at length how to get this into a Petition for the March Town meeting, if the deadline for a petition is within reach. B. Soucy will find out what Columbia and a few other towns have for their residents, and will draw up a petition for review of members (via email), while J. Moran communicates the committee’s intentions to D. Caron. Intended inclusions will be provisions to define alternative energy equipment as non-taxable fixtures, rather than taxable structures, even if they must have poured concrete foundations or outbuildings devoted to their use. Language should say, “EPA approved” and include something about reducing our carbon footprint.
Enforcement needed for compliance to Safety and Environment Laws - continued discussion from Nov 7, 2007 meeting regarding air quality in Town, emissions of misused outdoor wood furnaces, building code enforcement for safety of all residents and businesses, and energy efficiency to meet tightening regulations that will demand reduction of carbon footprint. Improvements noted: NH State Regulations are tightening, and Town of Colebrook is now requiring Occupancy Permits for Fire, Electrical and Plumbing projects. However, enforcement of laws is missing without a Building Inspector and written penalties for non-compliance. No action was taken on this discussion.
Health of Plastic-bottled Water and Aspartame - B. Soucy discussed the long-term effects (premature puberty, cancer…) that estrogen-mimicking compounds in plasticized water, milk and baby bottles have on our young children or adults. Polyethylene compounds have less leaching of chemicals and glass containers are safer. Public water is safer because of the stringent controls, and can be left out for 72 hours to rid it of chlorine. Aspartame is another danger to our children because it forms formaldehyde compounds and is found in many diet foods and drinks (e.g., diet Coke in plastic bottles). No action was taken on this discussion.
Actions to Pursue
B. Soucy will prepare the Petition, to be edited by C. Gueymard and others
J. Moran contact D. Caron re: Petition and Town Report
All members assemble materials for lists, resources, and contact info for binder
All send in material for inclusion in newspaper articles on energy and environment and other publications from EEC
L. Martell will document results of his valuable research on alternative power and regulations
J. Moran will contact Library to explore current media and storage of materials for public use
C. Gueymard and J. Moran will explore ways to assist residents with home projects
M.J. Vaillant and J. Moran will contact schools for Energy Conservation/Efficiency and Recycling
Talk with associates who are Balsam’s Green Team members to get info on Spring Expo
Request presence of Rick Tillotson and Danny Ouellet at next meeting
Next Meetings
Established 1st Tuesday of the Month at 7:00 PM as the regular meeting time. KHEOPS is the established meeting place. Next meeting: Feb 5, 2008. Snow date: Feb 12, 2008. Interim communication ongoing via email, personal contact, and by phone.
Attachments
Transfer Station Notes
First two newspapers Recycling Articles
Respectfully Submitted,
Julie Moran
Attachment 1
Transfer Station Notes - Dec 6, 2007
Kevin is always thinking, “What can I do that’s best for Colebrook and best for my crew?”
Reports: Saved $80,000 by April and Kevin writing reports in landfill monitoring.
Fixed water main in Mohawk River - saved $65,000.
Recycling issues: “County Recycles Book”
School Recycling - Wally currently collects and brings recycling from the schools
Upcoming PAYT (Pay-As-You-Throw) plan for household trash. We will need to write articles for people to accept this in the March town meeting. Selectmen are now behind it. Kevin talked with Littleton and Lancaster who are both doing it well and save over 40% in trash reduction. Kevin will do several Public Hearings for this program. Kevin and April will both send me emails of info.
Buildings - Garage heated with waste-oil heater - tons of oil from machines at landfill. Got grant from NH for this burner - could use another grant from another source to put in another burner. Colebrook Plumbing and Heating donated building to house TVs and monitors to store until truckload is collected. Town pays fee per unit plus trucking fee.
Details on items currently accepted for free and stored on site before being sent to recyclers:
Used motor oil from garages (if they don’t have used-oil furnaces)
Car batteries (lead acid), in newspaper building
Cadmium/lithium batteries, must be given to attendant; free to recycle for now
Compost pile available for weeds, grasses, vegetable matter— no meat, fat/grease or plastics.
Paint cans are recycled in separate metal or plastic piles; paint must be dried completely.
Recyclables to county recycling: they bale and ship from there.
Alkaline batteries are currently not recycled, but are safe to go into household trash.
Kevin hopes to build a swap shop or use a half building for one. He needs to deal with attendants for it. Hopefully this could be done next summer. It would only be open while Transfer Station is open. A large space behind the buildings is being cleared. It would be good space for recyclables to be stored once our County agreement is over in 2 years.
Mandatory items to recycle or landfill and their fees:
Refrigerators: $15; hauled to scrap metal pile after Freon is extracted
Roofing Materials: $50/cu yd. used as cold patch for roads & aggregate for road repairs
Demolition debris: $35/cu yd. includes plumbing fixtures, sheetrock, wood, rugs, hoses, pails.
Metal is pulled out/recycled, compacted to 90psi, landfilled in 12-ton blocks.
Mattress/Box springs $5 each. Not recycled but landfilled: it’s too labor intense to extract metal coils
Tires: $2-10 depending on size. A new plant in Montreal freezes them to manufacture rubber crumb for playgrounds, artificial turf and vehicle carpets
Fluorescent Bulbs: Four’ $0.50, 8’ $1.00. This disposal costs money because of trace mercury. These items are boxed and then shipped.
TVs: $10-20. We are trying to team up with other towns to cut trucking costs.
Monitors/computer towers/video devices: $5 each. Toxic content (e.g., mercury and lead) these items must be handled carefully and kept intact while being dismantled, so the toxins are not released.
Cylinders: Coleman, propane, torch kit, Helium, Refrigerant: $2-20/lb, depending on size.
The NH Recycling Association shops around daily to get the best prices for recyclables.
The cost of disposal is going up all the time. We have to truck most to Portsmouth, Boston, Concord, and Montreal. This currently translates into $1.10/mile for fuel, driver, insurance, and maintenance, with more price increases to come.
Attachment 2
Recycling - Our Economy of the Future
Julie Moran
12/20/07
Published in News and Sentinel, Dec 26, 2007, and Colebrook Chronicle, Dec 28, 2007
Colebrook Transfer Station is gearing up to improve the economy of our refuse disposal. Currently, Town Manager, Donna Caron, has a Recycling agreement with the County, such that the town is able to send many recyclables to the County Farm to reuse and recycle. However, much of the waste that lands in the compacter for landfill is recyclable, and will become very costly to dispose of once the landfill is capped this coming July.
“So what can I do about it? I’m only one person!” you say. Ahh, Yes! You are one VERY IMPORTANT person! In fact, you make ALL the difference in the world….one piece of trash at a time. Each individual on this planet can either contribute to the well being of our environment and economy, or their non-participation will contribute to the destruction of it. There is no middle ground. So how do we individually contribute to our future well-being?
Current space at the Transfer Station does not allow complete recycling at this point. However, Colebrook Public Works Director, Kevin McKinnon is working on opening up space to improve our ability to store more recyclables until they can be picked up in large bundles, which saves the town waste budget thousands of dollars every year. However, the Transfer Station does recycle many things, and makes it easy for participation in the program.
Metals are conveniently mixed into one pile, and the Transfer Station employees sort though it to separate the specific metals to recycle. Across a driveway are the dumpsters for glass, mixed cans, and plastics, which are easily accessed and always kept neat. Plastic bags are conveniently located to the side for residents to place their non-recyclable plastic bags.
Next to those bins is the corrugated box trailer, where flattened boxes are placed. Across the driveway is a shed housing sorted bins for newspapers, magazines, florescent light bulbs, used motor oil, and car batteries. Sorting your own newspapers into one bin, and mixed magazines into the other bin is necessary because they go through different processes to be recycled. The paper is separated into the bins by the way they are processed once they leave the Transfer Station.
The Transfer Station has been working on expanding their capability to recycle more paper and cardboard products. Last month, they began accepting thin cardboard boxes into the magazine bin. Cereal boxes, shoeboxes, and the like, now can be flattened and put in with the magazines. Mixed paper is also being accepted in the magazine bin. School papers, junk mail (without the cellophane), and old phone books are examples of mixed paper. Paper with plastic or wax coverings, metal pieces, or special coatings should not be placed in this bin, as they will not process correctly.
With all that said, the issue of storage in the home is still an issue. Many folks find that reserving one wastebasket for all their recyclables and using another for their “trash” is adequate. Some separate their paper from the cans/plastics. Lots of people like to crush their milk jugs, juice and water bottles….which saves space…but really, it just feels good to see how scrunched up one can make it.
Recycling our waste meets two major goals: pay less for trash removal, and make less mess for the future. There are financial savings and environmental savings. The bottom line is that if it costs more, we pay more, and if it costs less, then we pay less. It is essential that each resident and business become responsible in disposing of our waste. Recycling more now will save our taxes from increasing, and may even reduce them eventually. You may only be one person, but you are a VERY IMPORTANT one!
Attachment 3
“Pay as You Throw” Trash Disposal
Published in News and Sentinel, Jan 8, 2008
As the Titus Hill landfill nears its cap, the Town of Colebrook must find a suitable alternative for its household trash, which at this time goes into the landfill. Once the landfill is capped, this solid waste tonnage will have to be trucked and tipping fees paid at distant landfills, costing an estimated $190,850 for 2008 and closer to $215,000 in 2009, similar to the cost in 2004, prior to the local landfill use. From 2005-2007, the landfill saved taxpayers an estimated $70,000 per year in reduced trucking costs and tipping fees (average cost per year was $114,500). However, these savings will evaporate in July 2008, when the town will begin trucking solid waste to landfills 2-3 hours away. Combined higher fuel cost and a long haul to landfills will undoubtedly increase the cost of trash removal beyond the 2004
level.
The Town of Colebrook is set to follow the lead of 45 other NH communities in controlling the escalating cost of solid waste disposal. According to the EPA’s NH website listed below, 75% of NH communities are successfully implementing the Pay as You Throw (PAYT) program. The towns of Littleton and Lancaster instituted such a program in 1993 and 1999 respectively, increasing their recycling efforts, realizing over a 40% reduction in household waste, and a huge savings in the cost of disposal. While exploring ways to keep waste disposal costs down and to keep property taxes from raising once the
landfill is capped, Public Works Director Kevin McKinnon visited these PAYT sites last year and found them to be successful.
The PAYT program encourages residents, businesses and contractors to recycle by charging a fee per bag of trash thrown into the compactor, while allowing unlimited access to free disposal of properly placed recyclable items. Aluminum and metal cans, plastics, glass, newspaper, magazines, cardboard, auto batteries, and metals are recycled free of charge to town residents. Various vendors and the County Farm sort and send these items to recycling centers. By separating recyclables from household trash, trucking tonnage will be greatly reduced, thus saving tax dollars.
According to McKinnon, building materials and items with hazardous waste have an associated charge as part of a PAYT program to recover the mandatory disposal costs paid by the town. Such items have high costs attached due to the cost of retrieving toxic substances or separating out recyclable parts. Current PAYT items are refrigerators, roofing, demolition debris, mattresses and box springs, tires, TVs, computer monitors and towers, long fluorescent bulbs, and cylinders for propane, helium, and refrigerants.
The proposed PAYT program for household trash will encourage recycling by putting the cost of trash removal up front. Specially marked trash bags will be sold for $3.00 a piece. These 33-gallon trash bags will be the only ones allowed in the Transfer Station. The $3.00-per-bag fee covers the cost of trucking the trash from the transfer station to a landfill. It does not cover trash removal costs charged by a private company. Mandatory recycling of hazardous materials will continue to be charged per item, and cannot be thrown into the PAYT bags. The person who diligently separates out the recyclables will need to buy fewer bags. Each 33-gallon bag will hold approximately the same amount of trash as three 13-gallon kitchen size bags.
The first of three public hearings on this matter will be held Wednesday January 9, at 6:00 PM in the Colebrook District Court Room. Public input is encouraged, as residents will be asked to vote this program into reality at the Town Meeting in March. More information on PAYT programs is available at the following websites: www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/payt, www.des.state.nh.us.
Julie Moran, Colebrook Energy and Environment Committee
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