Enforcement Advisory Council Meeting

Minutes: January 25, 2007

Meeting called to order 9:41 a.m. Greg Pirie, temporarily acting as Chair for today’s meeting. Robert Wiechert, newly elected EAC Chair conducted the meeting after lunch because Mr. Pirie had to leave the meeting to address personal matters.

I. Introductions

Next EAC Meeting: Tuesday, April 3, 2007 in Sacramento.

II. Agenda Review

• Moushumi Hasan added an agenda item concerning rotating Permitting & Enforcement (P&E) contacts

• The Acting Chair added resolution 2007-03 to the agenda regarding the Temporary Waiver of Standards

• Rebecca Lafreniere requested to ask EAC members about staffing at small volume landfills

III. Approval Previous Minutes

A motion was made, seconded (Markie/Prinz) and the minutes for the December 5, 2006 EAC meeting were approved.

IV. EAC Resolutions: Status and Updates

A) Election of EAC Officer to Fill Remaining Vacancy (and revise Resolution 2006-07)

Resolution 2006-08 (Adobe PDF, 183 KB) had been drafted by Greg Pirie to update changes to the EAC officers made at the December 5, 2006 and sent to Howard Levinson.

Greg Pirie moved to nominate Robert Wiechert of Merced County LEA, Chair of the South Central Round Table, to be the EAC Chair. The motion was seconded by Sue Markie and Mr. Wiechert was unanimously elected by a voice vote. Mr. Pirie will draft resolution 2007-01 (Adobe PDF, 149 KB) to document the selection of the new Chair.

B) E-filing Data to CIWMB and Solid Waste Information System (SWIS) Database Accessibility-Sub Committee Report

Dennis Ferrier reported that the sub-committee conference call did not take place over the holidays but would organize another conference call. Mr. Ferrier also stated that Bernie Vlach’s participation on the committee was needed.

Mark de Bie said that staff has been able to modify SWIS to store documents of various formats.

C) Modifying Existing Active Disposal Site Gas Monitoring and Control Regulations

The initial, formal comment period has concluded and the regulation package is on the February 5, 2007 Permitting & Compliance (P&C) Committee meeting. Robert Wiechert, Patti Henshaw and Bill Prinz have concerns about this regulation package and Mr. Prinz will check to see if he would be able to attend the meeting on behalf of the EAC.

V.  EAC Discussion Items

A) Election of EAC Chair

See item IV. (A) above.

B) PDF Format Inspection Forms

Issues concerning the new electronic PDF format inspection forms appear to have been adequately addressed, at least for now. Bill Prinz had discussions with Skip Amerine regarding technical changes to the forms to improve performance.

C) Permit Application

Greg Pirie distributed paper copies of a document previously submitted to EAC members via e-mail. The document, compiled with input from Bill Prinz and Dennis Ferrier, described the concerns round tables have expressed re: form E-1-77. The paper addressed permitted tonnages vs. peak tonnages calculated on the application form. The types of materials, including “other” materials to be added to a facility’s tonnage, such as inerts, compost, processed green material (PGM), type a biosolids and other waste derived materials designated for beneficial reuse. E-1-77 is confusing and can be easily misconstrued by operators, LEAs and members of the public.

Robert Wiechert suggested that the form should be revised to have the application process meet the intentions of the permitted tonnages. Dennis Ferrier stated that the confusion was with the terminology surrounding the beneficial reuse issues: Who determines what a waste is and what’s a commodity, the operator, the LEA, etc? Dennis also provided a historical perspective of the alternative daily cover (ADC) and beneficial reuse issues concluding that LEAs and operators need clarity.

Robert McClellon said that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) may not be an accurate indicator of site life and that LEAs and local governments put reliance on CEQA which is not necessarily a strong predictor of future events.

Leonard Grossberg discussed traffic counts in permits while Robert Wiechert was concerned about how construction projects, not anticipated by CEQA, may create significant traffic impacts and exceed permitted traffic counts: the finite number in the permit only looks at garbage.

Mark de Bie shared quotes from the final statement of reasons (FSOR) for the E-1-77 regulations and 27 CCR § 18208 regarding permit conditions and distributed copies to participants. He stated that Advisory 25 was drafted to clarify confusion about tonnage limits and that E-1-77 is a tool for the LEA, who ultimately determines what is placed in the permit.

After returning from lunch further discussion took place about what action the EAC should take on this matter.

Mark de Bie suggested using the adjective “allowed” rather than “peak” tonnage and revising the language in the instructions. Leonard Grossberg reiterated that the Peak daily tonnage and what’s included in the “other” are what needs to be addressed. A motion was made and seconded to draft Resolution 2007-02. Dennis Ferrier would e-mail some bullet points to Bill Prinz who would put the items into a letter format for an EAC Resolution then forward it to Robert Wiechert for his signature. (The draft resolution may be re-circulated to members for an e-mail vote.)

E. EAC Meeting Format and Agenda Development

The agenda format was revised so that there is less repetition of items from previous meetings. Robert Wiechert raised the issue that the bi-laws call for a hand vote while most votes are done by a voice vote. It was suggested that the bi-laws be revised to allow the Chair to determine the method of voting on any given issue.

VI. CIWMB Topics, Updates and Discussion

A. Legislation/Regulations

Bob Holmes gave the update. No new legislation to report. Current rulemaking packages include:

1. Permit Implementation Regulations-These regulations were adopted by the Board. The final rulemaking file is being completed but has not yet been sent to OAL. The implementation date is expected to be in April 2007.
2. Active Disposal Site Gas Regulations–These regulations will go back to Committee on February 6, 2007 for approval or a 15 day extension.
3. Temporary Waiver of Terms–The formal rulemaking starts on February 26, 2007 through March 12, 2007. A public Hearing is planned for April 9th.
4. Financial Assurances–This regulatory package includes cost estimates and addresses closure costs beyond the 30 years and is expected to go the P&C in March 2007.
5. Composting of Mammalian Tissue-This will include emergency regulations package going to the P&C in March that allow for composting on-farm and all compost material must be used on-site.
6. Hearing Panel/Hearing Officer Procedures-Gabe Aboushanab is working on regulations to provide additional details on the hearing panel/hearing officer procedures. Gabe will request direction from the Board in February. He’ll be updating the Board on LEA performance results at the same time.
7. AB 1497 Package B-There will be no 1497 Package B regulations until after the restructuring process has been completed.
8. Home Generated Sharps-Leonard Grossberg brought up the issue of home generated sharps addressed in SB 1305. The focus of these regulations will be public education rather than enforcement and the Department of Health Services (DHS) has determined that this is a solid waste issue where these materials will be treated as a special waste

B. Permit Implementation Guidance

Regulations are not expected to be issued until April 2007 due to delays caused by legal staff’s need to address the Fishback Appeal. Training of trainers will be necessary before venues are set for specific 1497 training. In the interim a Q&A list will be developed to guide LEAs and operators based on questions that arise after the regulations are promulgated. Visual tools (i.e., flow charts, etc.) will also be developed and posted in the permit toolbox. The modified permitting process will also be addressed in the toolbox. The formal training will not occur until next year as part of the next A to Z permit training.

C. Recent Committee Restructuring, Executive Director’s Delegated Actions and Other Board Changes in Progress

Howard Levenson said that the re-organization is slowly taking place but may take a year as it progresses in pieces and phases. LEA’s should be aware of a focus on enforcement that is part of the reorganization process.

The P&E Committee is now the P&C Committee and agendas will be longer and include more than just hearing solid waste facility permits (SWFPs). There are now 3 committees: 1) Sustainability 2) Permitting and Compliance and 3) Strategic Policy (a “Committee of the Whole” made up of all Board members)–This committee has an outline of 12-13 policy objectives which Howard had distributed to the attendees.

Howard also discussed the “Fishback Appeal”. Fishback, the subject of a Ventura LEA enforcement order requested a hearing of the Ventura County Hearing Officer (HO) whose determination was appealed to the CIWMB. Both the HO and CIWMB upheld the LEA’s order that determined that Fishback was operating an inert disposal operation. Also, the use of an HO over a hearing panel was challenged by the appellant but upheld by the CIWMB.

An upcoming regulatory review will look at regulations regarding the appointment of a hearing officer and concerns over the hearing officer/panel process were raised and may be the subject of future regulatory review.

D. Training Update

Suzanne Hambleton reported on current and upcoming training events:

1. Current training events: Load checking and planning for informational meetings and public noticing requirements. 1497 regulations have not yet been sent to the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) but training addresses necessities of conducting an informational public hearing.
2. Paulino Luna addressed state minimum standards training. The first conference call would be on January 26th to discuss contents and audience of training sessions. Dennis Corcoran would be the coordinator. Paulino also discussed the compliance toolbox and inspection guidance. Training is planned for the summer. Mark de Bie discussed the on-line tutorial.
3. Health and Safety refresher training is coming in the spring.
4. Annual LEA/CIWMB Conference is scheduled for October 16-18 in San Diego. The Steering Committee is on track with planning the Conference.
5. Training Survey: Suzanne asked about annual training surveys and said that individual staff input is preferred over one individual completing a survey for a jurisdiction. Dennis Ferrier asked about having operators complete the survey.
6. Melissa Parker is working on the Enforcement Toolbox.

Added Agenda Items

Moushumi Hasan raised a concern about rotating P&E staff in Yolo and Yuba/Sutter Counties which have experienced 4-6 staff turnovers in recent years and that it has caused delays in processing permits. Mark de Bie explained the problem with high staff turnover and a small pool of potential candidates and that staff has to be shifted around to cover vacancies. He also warned that the reorganization could cause even more shifting and reassignment of staff. He said that the Supervisors have been kept constant to provide greater continuity. He said that when problems arise LEAs should contact Supervisors to resolve issues and if satisfaction is not attained then the Program Manager (Mark) should be contacted.

Rebecca Lafreniere asked about staffing levels at small tonnage (less than 50 tpd) facilities. Some attendees indicated that some landfills are staffed by one person and suggested contacting some smaller counties to get feedback on concerns with limited staffing.

The EAC voted unanimously to approve resolution 2007-03 regarding the Temporary Waiver of Standards regulations that will soon be starting the formal 45-day public comment period on February 26 through March 12, 2007. The Resolution was drafted by former Vice Chair Dave Altman and reviewed by Patti Henshaw and Bill Prinz. Minor changes will be made to the draft document prior to being signed by Robert Wiechert, EAC Chair.

VII.  Public Comment Period:

Meeting was adjourned at 2:50 p.m.

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