RESOLUTION offered by Commissioners McLaughlin, Higgins, Opat and Dorfman

BE IT RESOLVED, WHEREAS, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) established municipal solid waste management goals for Hennepin County of 1% reduction, 45% recycling, 3% organics recovery, and 32% resource recovery by 2015 in its Metropolitan Solid Waste Management Policy Plan 2010-2030 in order to minimize landfilling of waste; and WHEREAS, in 2012 the MPCA approved Hennepin Countys Solid Waste Management Plan that identified strategies to meet the goals for waste reduction, recycling, organics recovery, and resource recovery; and WHEREAS, the transport of waste by trucks to landfills contributes to air pollution and the disposal of waste in landfills continue to pose long term surface and groundwater contamination problems despite the development of improved liner and leachate collection programs, and air pollution from landfills include methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and toxic emissions, including mercury, even at landfills with landfill gas recovery mechanisms; and WHEREAS, Hennepin County sought over four years ago to use the existing capacity at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) by applying for a change to HERCs permit in order to meet the resource recovery goal established by the MPCA that is consistent with state waste management policy and hierarchy preferences and whose operational performance meets the permit standards and conditions established by the MPCA; and WHEREAS, Hennepin County has implemented new initiatives to work with municipalities, schools, multifamily housing and business, including a major apartment recycling initiative, development of plastics recycling markets, and away-from-home recycling, to meet the recycling goal, and WHEREAS, a recent waste completion study released by the MPCA indicated that 31% of discarded waste is made up of organic material; and WHEREAS, Hennepin County helped fund the creation of a pilot neighborhood composting project in the Linden Hills Neighborhood of Minneapolis; and WHEREAS, Hennepin County recently received four responses to a Request for Proposals for organic waste recovery in order to provide convenient, cost effective facilities for municipalities and others collecting this waste in the county, of which two proposals merit further consideration; and WHEREAS, Hennepin County estimates the annual cost of organics recovery programs for all municipalities in the County at approximately $7 million, and WHEREAS, last year the State of Minnesota collected $70 million from its Solid Waste Management Tax, which was intended to support local government waste management facilities and programs of which the legislature has allocated 30%, $21 million, to the states general fund and only 22%, $14 million, to counties through the Select Committee on Recycling and the Environment (SCORE) funding mechanism of which Hennepin County received a mere 4%, or $2.8 million;

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that staff be directed to withdraw the Countys request to seek a modification of HERC s conditional use permit from the city of Minneapolis and its application to the MPCA for approval to burn waste up to its design capacity; BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that Hennepin County include in its legislative platform a request to end the diversion to the State General Fund of SCORE revenues and to reinstate these funds to their original purpose, funding the additional local costs of implementing waste reduction, recycling and organics recovery programs to meet the states waste management goals; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that staff be directed to draft modifications to the Countys Municipal Recycling Funding Policy to require cities of the first class to provide organic waste collection services to all residents living in 1-to-8-unit buildings no later than January 1, 2015, and report on a potential schedule for cities of the second, third and fourth classes for consideration by the Board by April 30, 2014; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Agreement A140055 with Specialized Environmental Technologies Inc. and Agreement A140056 with Full Circle Organics LLC for composting organic waste for the period of March 1, 2014 through February 29, 2019 be approved; that the Chair of the County board be authorized to sign the agreements on behalf of Hennepin County, and the Controller be authorized to disburse funds as directed.