Western Placer Waste Management Authority is preparing to issue bonds for a $120 million high-tech sorting facility at its landfill in Placer County.
The new equipment is the authority’s effort to comply with new statewide regulations that mandate a 75% reduction of organic matter going into the ground in two years.
The upgrade and new equipment will mean that most of the population of Placer County west of Colfax will throw their garbage into a single bin, not including yard waste, rather than sort it themselves.
“This is similar to what we’ve been doing all along,” said Ken Grehm, executive director of the authority. “Rather than trying to teach 300,000 residents how to do it right, we’re going to do it for them.”
The upgrade is necessary because of a host of new requirements from the state, Grehm said.
Under provisions of Senate Bill 1383 of 2016 that went into effect this year, organic waste is required to be diverted from dumps to cut the amount of methane it would release if it were just buried. Among other things, SB 1383 requires the reduction of organic waste disposal in landfills by 75% by 2025.
One of the benefits of those new diversion requirements is that they will extend the life of the 320-acre landfill an additional 20 or more years, said Eric Oddo, program manager with the authority. Under current conditions, the landfill would have reached capacity in about 36 years. The new system will buy another couple decades.
The downside is that the authority has to come up with about $120 million for new sorting equipment, optical scanners and screening technology to meet the mandate.
The authority already sorts out cardboard, plastic, metals construction waste, yard waste and other items. The organic material will be added to items sorted.
The new equipment will include bag rippers and screening technology to sort out different waste streams and eventually the more difficult screening will be done by about 200 employees at the facility, he said.
The new plant, which will be installed over two years, will be operated by FCC Environmental Services of Houston, which is a subsidiary of Spanish company FCC Servicios Medio Ambiente, one of the largest recycling firms in the world. FCC started running the landfill and other operations July 1 on a 10-year contract.
The authority is a special district with a budget of $40.6 million in fiscal 2022, which just ended. It plans to bond for the money for the new facility, which will cost three times its annual budget.
“We have a perfect storm of regulations requiring this, inflation and high gas prices, all at the same time,” Oddo said. “It’s a balancing act. We have to manage our debt coverage ratio, our credit rating and keep our tipping fees in check as much as we can.”
Tipping fees are important, because they are competitive. The rural and municipal curbside pickup is contracted to go to Western Placer, but other users can shop around, so the authority has to be competitive with neighboring counties.
All counties are approaching the mandates differently, and some segregating commercial from residential waste streams. The associated changes called for in the mandates have been controversial in some counties, including recently in Yolo County.
This project in Placer County is FCC’s first engagement in California. It already has operations in Florida, Texas, Nebraska and Iowa.
The authority’s members include the cities of Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln and Placer County. It serves an area that also includes Granite Bay, Loomis, Auburn and Colfax.
The new facility and equipment will be at the Placer County regional landfill on Athens Avenue, just west of Thunder Valley Casino Resort.
