Tag Archives: Neal Road landfill

Your toilet just got a lot more expensive

15 Apr

Hahn, Paul <PHahn@buttecounty.net>

Yesterday, 8:10 AM
You;
Kirk, Maureen (MKirk@buttecounty.net);Schmidt, Dennis (DSchmidt@buttecounty.net)

Juanita,

 We treated your request as an official Public Information Request which means it is routed through the Department, and then County Counsel for a response.   It should be forthcoming very soon.   You request was only received early Tuesday morning and the response is forthcoming.

 In addition, this issue has been discussed with the Board in public session on numerous occasions over the last two plus years as well as special meetings with the affected industries involved and has been extensively covered in the local papers.   The issue of transporting the septage to Lincoln is actually the most consumer friendly option for cost control.  

 As soon as you receive the official response, if you still have questions, staff and I would be more than happy to sit down with you to answer any more questions.   We pride ourselves in being transparent in the County and I assure you that this issue, as well as all others, has not and will not be pushed under the radar.  

 Thank you,

 Paul Hahn
Chief Administrative Officer/CAO

Butte County Administration

25 County Center Drive, Suite 200, Oroville, CA 95965

phahn@buttecounty.net

T: 530.538.7631

Here’s something people need to know about me – don’t call me by my first name until I’ve introduced myself that way. These people have their titles, I get mine – “Ms. Sumner,” thank you.

My Response:

Hahn, Paul (PHahn@buttecounty.net);
Kirk, Maureen (mkirk@buttecounty.net)
 Mr. Hahn, 

I’m sorry, I thought I had asked a pretty simple question. You told me, “I am forwarding your question to Bill Mannel, the Manager of the Neil Road facility who is charge of this operation for  a response.  Bill is extremely knowledgeable and can best respond.” You didn’t say anything about FOIA or the county counsel. 

I’ve followed the agendas Mr. Hahn, and I’v tried to follow the minutes – the reports are not included, and the minutes are very incomplete. I never saw a discussion about having our septage taken to the Chico wastewater treatment plant – can you direct me to that report, which I assume would be attached to the corresponding agenda?

I’m sorry you seem to be offended. I’m just trying to remind you – you came to the Local Government Committee meeting and told Mark Orme not to make the same mistake the county had made in rolling out the trash deal – you told him to be sure to get the public engaged early in the discussion. You reported two weeks of phones ringing “off the hook” with complaints over that deal. People are still mad.  But, here you are, making the same mistake in this deal, you are not engaging the public.   I own two properties with septic tanks, I haven’t had any notice. My septic pump technician has not been noticed in any way. Do you really expect people to check the agendas every two weeks just to make sure septic tanks are still legal? The newspaper isn’t really covering it adequately. How is the public supposed to know what’s going on here? 

What have you done to engage the public in this matter? 

I’ll tell you what, you aren’t exactly encouraging me to be involved, I feel very much I am being given the runaround.  

Juanita Sumner

Excuse me for getting huffy, but I felt Hahn was getting kind of huffy. His first response to me – the one-liner I quoted above – seemed friendly and casual. Now all the sudden he’s coming back with a process that includes county counsel? Why? 

Because I complain. I’m the squeaky wheel, but around here, you don’t get the grease, you get crapped on. 

Let me tell you what’s going on here. The city of Chico and County of Butte have conspired to keep the Neal Road Landfill  running well beyond it’s capacity by requiring that all trash collected in Butte County go to Neal Road.  There have been articles in the Chico Enterprise Record – Dump  Starving For Trash!  

Here’s an old post about it:

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2013/08/12/whats-the-real-story-on-trash-zones-first-nakamura-says-its-to-get-trucks-off-the-streets-then-admits-city-needs-revenues-county-manager-says-the-dump-needs-the-revenues-solution-pick-the-tax/

News and Review quotes Hahn:

“‘The county’s main goal in this is to make sure the haulers bring their trash to the Neal Road landfill,’ Hahn said. ‘We want that measurable solid waste for a variety of reasons.’

Not only does the landfill need a certain amount of waste to be fiscally sound, but it also allows it to pursue more waste-to-energy opportunities, he said.

What the county would like to see is for the city’s haulers to agree to bring their waste to the landfill.”

 

In past Recology has trucked trash they collected here to their state-of-the-art facility near Wheatland. When they refused to bring trash to Neal Road, they lost the contract for residential service in Chico. 

Of course the Neal Road dump is in the Stone Age by comparison and is already past it’s capacity. You realize, that big plastic-covered mountain you see from the freeway used to be a canyon?  How will they fit more trash in that place? By getting rid of the only septage ponds in Butte County. How could they do that when they know most of Butte County is on septic tanks? Sounds like they’re trying to pull something, huh?

There is the City Sewer Treatment Plant out by the river west of town, why not truck it there, you ask? I couldn’t find the discussion they had at Butte County Supervisors’ chambers, but I think it went something like this. Chico Treatment Plant is already  at capacity, but they are in the same quandary as the dump – they still need more money for salaries and pensions.

The sewer fund, as told by our former mayor Mark Sorensen, was tapped out by fund transfers. Like the road fund, all the money had been trickled out by way of “appropriations” to pay salaries and benefits in other departments. They want more sewage out there, but they have the same problem as the dump – the sewer treatment plant needs a massive expansion, just to handle the new sewer hook-ups going on all over Chico right now. The city actually ran trunk  lines on private property, free of charge,  to encourage people in Chico to hook up.

Now they are making a deal to take Paradise sewage. But no room for Chico septic tanks? Looks like we’re out of luck! Looks like we’ll all end up going on sewer too! 

You think you sewer rats will get off easy? Take a look at your bill sometime, keep looking, cause sewer charges are going up, up, up!

I know – this is a racket.  You know too. Get off the pot and say something about it. 

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Talking heads discuss garbage tax

7 May

Yesterday I attended the Local Governments Committee meeting Downtown. I wasn’t able to stay for the whole meeting but stayed long enough to satisfy my curiosity about some issues I’ve been trying to follow. 

In attendance were county supervisors Maureen Kirk and Larry Wahl, Chico council members Mayor Mark Sorensen, Mayor of Vice Sean Morgan and better-never-than-late Reanette Fillmer. There were staffers from the city and the county, including county administrator Paul Hahn and city manager Mark Orme.

These meetings are for staffers to provide updates to representatives of various county and city entities of ongoing issues like the nitrate compliance plan and the garbage franchise.  They are open to the public and the public should try to attend – a good overview of what’s going on, shorter and more to the point than council meetings.  I’m sorry, I mistakenly said they are held monthly – it’s every three months, which is a good schedule, not too often, not too seldom. They include minutes from previous meetings so you can stay up on the conversation.

Yesterday Hahn and Orme both gave reports on their respective garbage franchise efforts. At the county, Hahn made it clear that the main concern is getting enough trash to keep the dump operating, so the franchise includes a provision that trash must go to the Neal Road Landfill. This was a question because Recology owns and operates a dump in Wheatland where they are currently taking Chico’s trash. Trash  from the county now goes exclusively to Neal Road. 

Hahn went on enthusiastically about how they need that money to modernize the dump. I’ve seen improvements at the dump the last few years so I’m willing to believe him. I also appreciate his frankness – he complained, and other county staffers like Bill Mannel complained about Waste Management. They said  their phones “rang off the hook” for about two weeks with complaints about the new trash service, “mostly Waste Management.” Waste Management has no call center in  California – you WM customers knew that already – it’s in PHOENIX! If you’ve had that problem with WM for years, maybe it’s a comfort for you to know they treated your $200,000/year County Administrative Officer like shit too.

And frankly, for an overpaid pencil pusher, Hahn is a very nice and approachable man, that kind of pisses me off. 

The county had  all  kinds of problems with WM, but the one that got people really upset was the change  from weekly recycling and yard waste pick-up to bi-monthly pick-up. After all these years they’ve been telling us we need to recycle and sort our yard waste, they cut service? I can’t believe they thought that would be okay – this whole thing is a Repo-Man grab between the county, the haulers, and the customers, fighting over nickels and dimes because the county is so desperate to keep the salaries paid. That’s why the dump has no money, the are management heavy out there. 

Another problem was private roads. Garbage trucks shred even  paved roads, so a lot of people in Forest Ranch and other rural communities don’t want them on their private roads. The haulers won’t go on a private road anymore without a signed release, they don’t want to be responsible for what their oversized trucks do  to private roads. Bill Mannel says there’s a conundrum here – if the county forces the haulers onto private roads without the release of liability, they will be legally responsible for the roads. But, county money cannot be used to fix private roads. This is also a problem in Chico – I have two private driveways shared with neighbors who bring trucks right up to my gate. I asked Orme about this and he pretended ignorance – there’s private driveways all  over Chico, do people know their rights regarding the damage these trucks are doing to their private property? 

It was refreshing to hear these people talk straight about the problems the average person has every day.  And we have no clout, we have to depend on these happy wanderers to protect us.  Talk about “up Shit Creek without a paddle.”  At least the county is not making service mandatory, they just want whatever trash is picked up to go  to their dump. I don’t think that’s unreasonable – ever follow a garbage truck for 60 miles up Hwy 70? That’s unreasonable. 

Chico City Mangler Mark Orme made it clear that the city’s franchise agreement is about money for the city of Chico. When I asked him if service would  be mandatory for city residents, he wormed  around (I’m going to call that, “Orming”), saying this was still in negotiation with the haulers. But he added, many municipalities require trash service, and the way he said it leads me to believe that’s what he wants. When I asked him about a subsidy for low-income, he said that was in negotiation too.

I wish  I were a lawyer, but I do know, if they try to shove mandatory service on us, they have to have the low-income subsidy,  just like Obamacare. 

I don’t like Mark Orme. He’s out for his own gain, he doesn’t give a crap about this town. 

After the garbage franchise report they went on to discuss a few other interesting topics – I’ll get back to you on those, time to get to work. 

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