TITLE
Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing City Manager to enter into an agreement with Waste Management, Inc., to allow the City of Long Beach to deliver ash from SERRF to Waste Management’s El Sobrante Landfill at a fixed cost, for a period of up to seven years, at an estimated cost of $7,000,000 - $8,000,000 per year. (District 2)
DISCUSSION
The City of Long Beach’s (City) residential refuse, as well as refuse from numerous private haulers serving other area cities, is taken to the Southeast Resource Recovery Facility (SERRF) where it is burned and generates electricity. SERRF handles approximately 500,000 tons of municipal solid waste each year and, in the combustion process to create the electricity, produces about 175,000 tons of ash annually. This ash is treated and currently transported to the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts’ Puente Hills Landfill (Puente Hills) located near the City of Whittier.
Puente Hills does not charge the City for disposal of ash. The ash is put to beneficial use as road base material and this reuse contributes about 13 percent to the City’s overall estimated waste diversion of about 75 percent, which is among the highest in the nation. The Puente Hills landfill, however, is scheduled to close on October 31, 2013 and will likely stop accepting ash from SERRF for reuse around July of 2013, jeopardizing the waste diversion credit the City receives for the beneficial reuse and no-cost disposal of ash at this facility. If this diversion credit is lost, the City will need to develop and implement new waste diversion programs, at an unknown cost, to continue to meet its current diversion rate.
El Sobrante Landfill (El Sobrante), located in Riverside County, is owned by Waste Management, Inc. (WM). Once the Puente Hills landfill closes in 2013, El Sobrante will be the only Class 3 landfill in California that is permitted by the Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) to receive and reuse ash. By utiliz...
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