Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency (DCRRA) monthly meeting, 8.19.2010

I didn’t really want to come to this meeting today. It’s mid-August and beautiful, and I have no idea what I’m doing here in this room of 20 white people (15 guys & 5 women) who are considerably older than me. Also, I got there a little late for the pre-meeting press conference about implementing Zero Waste, and declined to be interviewed on camera by Cablevision. I was one of two citizens to attend, with 2 politicians and 1 DCRRA board member (thought there’d be a lot more support!). I’d been following local politician Joel Tyner’s outreach on facebook to find out about this initiative, and that’s how I learned about the meeting.

From what I’m gathering, the incinerator burns hundreds of thousands of tons per year and is running constantly. We burned 12,704 tons in July but we’re still over the budget of 84,030 tons this year (now at 91,136 tons). This burning generates electricity, which generates revenue for Dutchess County to the tune of $200K. Side note: A DCRRA report I read about stated, "We estimate that the total amount of waste generated annually in Dutchess County, exclusive of construction and demolition debris, but including recyclable materials, is approximately 250,000 tons. Of this amount, approximately 10,000 tons is currently recycled through processing at the Agency's Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in the Town of Poughkeepsie, including most, if not all of the recyclables collected by the cities, towns, and villages in the County. This represents only 4% of the total estimated waste stream."  I think we can do a lot more to raise that recycling figure!

The conversation got heated when board member Steve Lynch, who runs a local energy company and was on video outside, brought up the following fact: In July, 1500 tons of waste combusted @$70/ton, we lost $105,000 in electrical revenue. The rest of the board disagreed, and the conversation ended with,

Steve: “You guys look it at it different”.

Other board member: “We don’t look at it different”.

Awkward silence.

And so the meeting dragged on, covering topics such as delinquent payments from the Hess & Dyal companies, preferred reports for next month’s meeting, and outstanding questions. I’m really here to learn about the incinerator and what’s going to happen with it, and how the hazardous cleanup days are organized and paid for. Obviously, there’s a lot of red tape to cut through to get more information. In the last 3 years, I’ve participated in 5 of these cleanup days on behalf of my employers, friends and family. While I really love spreading the word about these days and collecting a Honda full of material to be sustainably recycled, it’d be wonderful to have a hazmat day in Beacon. The last project I participated in was amazing – I posted the info on facebook like an event, and invited all of my local friends. In turn, some of them re-posted it, and over 1000 people were invited. At least a dozen of my friends would love to have a more local event. I wonder how we can make it happen? And I really need to know how it’s paid for (8 events/year @ $12,500/event, total $100K/year).

The license for the incinerator will expire on December 31, and public comment on the plan opens on September 1. Ooohwee! We’d better get ready to write in.