HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB-11/16/2021 PH 1
1 COUNTY OF SUFFOLK : STATE OF NEW YORK
TOWN OF SOUTHOLD
2 --------------------------------------------------
TOWN OF SOUTHOLD
3 REGULAR TOWN BOARD MEETING
PUBLIC HEARING ' S
4 --------------------------------------------------
5
6 Southold, New York
7 November 16, 2021
4 : 30 P . M .
8
9
10
11 B E F 0 R E :
12
13 SCOTT A . RUSSELL, SUPERVISOR
14 LOUISA EVANS , BOARD MEMBER
15 JILL DOHERTY, BOARD MEMBER
16 JAMES DINIZIO, JR . , BOARD MEMBER
17 SARAH NAPPA, BOARD MEMBER
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
2
1 LOCAL LAW SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN
2 JUSTICE LOUISA EVANS : Please take
3 note that a public hearing on the Town ' s
4 Draft Local Solid Waste Management Plan
5 (LSWMP) , which details how the Town intends
6 to work towards reducing solid waste
7 generation and increasing recycling
8 opportunities for businesses and residents ,
9 will be held at 4 : 30 P . M . on Tuesday,
10 November 16, 2021 at the meeting hall at
11 Southold Town Hall at 53095 Main Road,
12 Southold, New York . You can view this
13 online at the Town ' s website . The draft has
14 been prepared in accordance with New York
15 State Conservation Law sections 27-0106 and
16 27- 0107 , and New York State Department of
17 Environmental Conservation Regulations Part
18 366 . I have affidavits that it was
19 published in the Suffolk Times , and on the
20 Town Clerk ' s bulletin board . And I think
21 that is all we have .
22 SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Okay .
23 MR . BUNCHUCK : Thank you everybody .
24 I guess for the record, I am James Bunchuck,
25 Solid Waste Coordinator for the Town of
3
1 Southold . And thank you for being here .
2 This is sort of a culmination of process
3 that begun back in 2015 . This is renew or
4 developing a new solid waste plan, which is
5 required by the State . The first one, the
6 Town did it back in 1995 . Believe it or
7 not, I was here for that too . And that was
8 a 20 year plan . This plan started in 2015 .
9 There were major regulatory changes . The
10 department was engaged in and delayed things
11 in the community as well . And then of
12 course, COVID hit . And people stopped
13 meeting . So we ' re just about done . It ' s a
14 Local Solid Waste Management Plan, LSWMP for
15 short . The DEC requires all municipalities
16 be covered by the Local Solid Waste Plan .
17 And that there be a Public Hearing allowing
18 the opportunity for public feedback . The
19 plan has been posted on the Town ' s website,
20 as Louisa said, since September 2020 . And
21 it can be accessed from the main page of
22 Solid Waste website, which is
23 Southoldtownny . gov . And with that, I am
24 going to flush it out a little bit more, I
25 am going to go to consultant, Ms . Calarco,
4
1 with Mcean Engineering, who put in an
2 incredible amount of time and effort on this
3 plan . And if you do look at it, you will
4 see the kind of detail that goes into it .
5 And she ' s quite an effort for that . Laura?
6 MS . CALARCO : Thank you, Jim . Good
7 evening, Supervisor, Town Board and
8 everybody here in the public that has come
9 out to this evening . As Jim mentioned, this
10 is the final , final step in what has been a
11 very long planning process . And I do want
12 to thank everybody at the Town who has been
13 helpful throughout this planning process .
14 Basically, for anybody who is new to this
15 effort, a Local Solid Waste Management Plan,
16 we call it LSWMP . I don ' t know why they say
17 it that way, but that is how they do . It ' s
18 basically a planning document that is really
19 to help the Town . It ' s meant to be a living
20 document . It ' s got tons of information on
21 your population . On you solid waste
22 management programs . On available
23 technologies . On financial analysis .
24 Basically the whole document compares to a
25 variety of different ways to management
5
1 solid waste . Reduce waster generation and
2 to increase recycling . It compares the
3 financial , the environmental and the
4 operational cost and benefits of these
5 different ways to reduce waste generation
6 rates . To increase recycling rates . And
7 then it basically uses it to define
8 criteria . There is a whole section that
9 defines the criteria and how we end of
10 selecting the initiatives that basically
11 become what is to be part of the final
12 program plan, which is the measures in what
13 the Town is committing and scheduling to
14 implement over a 10 year planning period .
15 Essentially the Town favored initiatives
16 that were practical and cost effective for
17 the Town to implement . Many of these things
18 the Town has been doing for many years and
19 we ' re just continuing imitatives .
20 Continuing the original 1995 plan . Things
21 like that on an annual basis , Mr . Bunchuck,
22 will always evaluate his vendors and
23 recycling programs . And making sure he is
24 selecting the most cost effective vendors .
25 Things like that are -- some of the
6
1 initiatives that are continued over from
2 many, many years . So basically for anybody
3 out there looking at the plan tonight, as
4 Jim mentioned, it ' s on the website . The
5 Town ' s website . If you go to the
6 Department ' s section of the website and you
7 go to the waste management page, you can
8 bring up Volume I . And really the most
9 important -- the meet of the plan is in
10 Section 7 , which is all about the
11 implementation . So we ' re going to talk
12 about this program implementation schedule
13 this evening . It ' s basically the most
14 important part of the plan . And it lists a
15 variety -- there is 28 different goals of
16 the plan that the Town has laid out . And
17 there is main categories that these fall
18 into . The agency does require that you have
19 goals for all the different waste streams
20 and analyzes . Which is everything from, you
21 know, your regular -- what is called
22 municipal solid waste is the technical term
23 that we use to describe household trash .
24 All the way to construction and demo debris ,
25 which solely comes from construction
7
1 projects . And even greenhouse emissions is
2 something that is a waste stream that the
3 DEC requires the Town to analyze in this
4 plan . So basically the main categories are
5 represented into the program schedule and
6 then we will take any questions . So one of
7 the most important things that this plan
8 comes up with is some ideas on how the Town
9 can create new ways for the people to
10 recycle . There is four different
11 initiatives on the program schedule and from
12 one of them is adding recycling bins and
13 points at various spaces , such as parks and
14 downtown ' s . And another is simply
15 increasing the presence and availability at
16 public events , such as the Mattituck
17 Strawberry Festival . So these are things
18 that the Town has been starting to do
19 already, and which can be an impact on
20 making recycling more accessible to the
21 general public . Another main category that
22 is really a big focus off the plan is
23 collecting data on a lot of the different
24 waste streams that are out there . Anyone
25 who is familiar with how the Town manages
8
1 its waste is you guys have a transfer
2 station and you take primarily residential
3 regular household trash . And there are a
4 variety of things that are accepted at the
5 transfer station, but a lot of waste is
6 generated by the commercial sector, private
7 sector . By schools or other types of
8 private communities . The Town doesn ' t touch
9 these waste streams . So it doesn ' t have
10 data on these waste streams . But so
11 basically there is a number of different
12 data collections in there that will -- the
13 Town will have metrics about all of the
14 waste that is occurring then the boundaries
15 of the Town, which will help the Town plan
16 for long term needs . I know there has been
17 a lot of changes in the last couple of years
18 with a lot of seasonal population kind of
19 staying around for a long time . So that
20 makes a big impact on you know, the future
21 planning for solid waste . And a lot of the
22 initiatives in this plan can help basically
23 -- help the Town have better long term
24 capital planning, which makes costs a lot
25 more payable for taxpayers and helps to meet
9
1 any costs of any necessary capital
2 improvements that might arise in the future .
3 So those are a lot of -- there are some very
4 simple ways . Things in some cases simply
5 writing letters . These are not things that
6 are expensive at all and many of them can be
7 accomplished with existing resources of
8 Waste Management Department so that they can
9 basically better estimate the needs of the
10 Town for the future . Another major focus of
11 the plan and solid waste management planning
12 throughout the State and even also on the
13 Federal level , are ways to reduce organic
14 waste . Especially food waste . Organic
15 waste -- and Melissa, if you have that waste
16 composition graphic that we can screen share
17 up, there is basically about 25 -- if you
18 take a look at this diagram, this is about a
19 rough break up of the waste generated within
20 the Town of Southold . And as you can see
21 from here about 250 of the waste stream that
22 is generated in Southold is organics . And
23 another 26% is paper . Many of these things
24 can be ultimately reduced and recycled . And
25 one of the things that the plan suggests
10
1 then of the waste stream in Southold is
2 organics and another 26% is paper . Many of
3 these things can be ultimately reduced and
4 recycled . And one of the things that the
5 plan suggests is feasibility of creating a
6 pilot program to create vegetative food
7 waste only into the Town ' s existing compost
8 organization . The reason it ' s important to
9 focus on the -- it ' s a very large
10 percentage . Much more than glass , which is
11 40 . Plastics , which gets a lot of attention
12 but much lesser percent of the waste stream.
13 About 200 of the waste stream is disposed of
14 in landfill or you know, in the case of
15 Southold, sent to a waste energy facility .
16 ( Inaudible ) possible causes of greenhouse
17 gas emissions . And so it ' s something that
18 the DEC and EPA have a big focus on trying
19 to quantify and reduce . So there is about
20 five different measures in the plan about
21 different ways to -- anything from public
22 information, to help people creative buy
23 food and buy what they need . To making sure
24 that food doesn ' t go to waste and food is
25 given to hungry people and instead of ending
11
1 up in the garbage . So there is a lot of
2 great things in the plan about that . And I
3 just want to talk briefly about two focuses
4 of the implementation schedule and then we
5 can have -- we can have questions . As I
6 mentioned, greenhouse gas emissions are
7 something, believe it or not, they consider
8 -- the State regulations consider to be
9 wastes . And great news is that the Town of
10 Southold has done a lot of great things to
11 reduce their energy measures . And all of
12 these great things that the Town has been
13 doing over the past many years to use
14 greener facilities and greener operations
15 are included in the plan . So these are
16 things that the Town is primarily already
17 doing . So that you will be easily to show
18 progress on those . And then the last and
19 final thing is construction and demolition
20 debris . The program plan contains a few
21 different ideas basically that are public
22 information type programs to help provide
23 information to homeowners and contractors on
24 more sustainable ways to demolish
25 structures . And basically in a way that
12
1 some of the materials like timber and
2 concrete can actually be reused or brought
3 to a facility to recycle them. So that
4 demolition is not done in a way that results
5 in massive mixed material simply going to a
6 landfill or to a waste energy plant . So
7 essentially the focus of the plan is to
8 basically help to increase reuse and many of
9 the materials that are used in construction .
10 So those are basically -- that is really a
11 basic overview of what the plan is setting
12 up to accomplish . And if any has any -- if
13 there is anybody in the public that wishes
14 to comment or ask questions , we ' re happy to
15 answer anything or anything that the
16 Supervisor or the Town Board may have . And
17 I yield the floor back to Supervisor
18 Russell .
19 SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : We don ' t
20 have any questions . Do you have any
21 comments , you ' re welcome to make them before
22 we close up the hearing?
23 MR . BUNCHUCK : I guess the only
24 comment is that it has been educational for
25 me to work with Laura on this because a lot
13
1 has changed in the 90 ' s and what is going
2 on . The construction is important because
3 right now our ( inaudible ) material gets
4 disposed of at the Town of Brookhaven
5 landfill , which is only allowed to accept
6 C&D . And that is schedule to close, I
7 believe in ' 23 or ' 24 , Laura? And the
8 amount of waste that is currently going to
9 Brookhaven is not enough capacity in Long
10 Island to absorb it at other facilities . So
11 a lot of it is going to have to be shipped
12 off at the island at an absorbant cost . And
13 I think we will be looking at ways to try
14 and recycle material . There are laws in
15 California for example, they don ' t call it
16 destruction . They call it deconstruction .
17 Where multiple containers would have to be
18 placed at a construction site to take out
19 the various things that might be recyclable,
20 which may be the appliances or clean wood or
21 some of these other items . So that is
22 coming down the pike for all of Long Island .
23 Not just Southold . There is going to be a
24 big impact when that landfill closes . And
25 people in the public and private sectors on
14
1 the Island are addressing that now and
2 looking at ways to -- if it has to be
3 shipped off . If it had to go by truck for
4 example . You know, other ways of
5 distributing some of that material . But
6 that in the coming years is going to be a
7 pretty big issue . And so I am glad that
8 we ' re looking into it . As far as anything
9 else, no, I am pleased . I think the plan is
10 good and addresses a lot of things . It says
11 that we have to look at these goals before
12 ( inaudible ) is managed and recycled . And
13 that is what we ' re going to do .
14 SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Thank you .
15 Thank you for everything . Thank you to the
16 consultant . Jim, I will say personally, you
17 are without a doubt one of the most
18 overlooked department that I had . And a lot
19 of it is my fault because I was used to
20 things running so well there and it doesn ' t
21 need my attention . They do a great job .
22 And I think I can speak on behalf of the
23 whole Board, thank you for everything you do
24 for this Town .
25 MR . BUNCHUCK : Thank you . And if I
15
1 am ( inaudible ) doing my job right .
2 COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Yes , you
3 are .
4 MR . BUNCHUCK : Thank you .
5 JUSTICE LOUISA EVANS : I make a
6 motion we close the hearing .
7 COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Second .
8 SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : All in
9 favor?
10 COUNCILWOMAN SARAH NAPPA: Aye .
11 COUNCILMAN JAMES DINIZIO JR . : Aye .
12 COUNCILWOMAN JILL DOHERTY : Aye .
13 JUSTICE LOUISA EVANS : Aye .
14 SUPERVISOR SCOTT RUSSELL : Aye .
15
16 ( Public Hearing Concluded . )
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
16
1 C E R T I F I C A T I O N
2
3
4 I , JESSICA DILALLO, a Court Reporter
5 and Notary Public, for and within the State
6 of New York, do hereby certify :
7 THAT the above and foregoing contains a
8 true and correct transcription of the
9 Public Hearing held on November 16, 2021 ,
10 via videoconference, and were transcribed by
11 me .
12 I further certify that I am not
13 related to any of the parties to this
14 action by blood or by marriage and that I
15 am in no way interested in the outcome of
16 this matter .
17 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have
18 hereunto set my hand this 16th day of
19 November, 20 1 .
20
21
22 4essica DiLallo
23
24
25