At Monday's pre-council meeting, four possibilities were presented to the Columbia City Council on restarting recycling after a tornado destroyed the city's Material Recovery Facility.
The options are to rebuild it on one of three landfill property locations or to transfer recyclables to another city. The options were presented by Kate Vasquez of RRT Design & Construction, the company consulting on the project.
During the meeting, Mayor Barbara Buffaloe brought up concerns about how the options can even be compared since exact finances have not been determined.
The recycling facility already needed to be replaced before it was destroyed. Financial estimates for replacing it were made before the tornado, so they include some inapplicable costs, like demolition, said Erin Keys, director of Columbia Utilities.
Rebuilding options
The three possibilities for rebuilding the recycling facility include:
The existing site: This would require finishing clearing the existing site, which Keys said was "substantially complete." Vasquez said this option is the most expeditious of the three rebuild possibilities.
Landfill Operation Center: Constructing a new center on the existing Landfill Operation Center site would cost $26.47 million. This would entail tearing down the Landfill Operation Center on the current site, rebuilding the center elsewhere onsite and building the recycling facility in its place. Keys said this would take more time because the landfill center would need to be "substantially relocated" before recycling facility construction could begin.
When Buffaloe clarified this timeline at the meeting, Vasquez said, "Needing to entirely construct a new Landfill Operations Center is new information to me."
New facility: Building a new recycling facility on a gravel lot on landfill property would cost $26.71 million. When it came to comparing risks, benefits, limitations, construction timing and capital costs between each of the options, this one scored the lowest, according to RRT's analysis.
All three options require finding a temporary alternative to process recyclables. This could mean transferring them to another city, which was also one of the permanent options presented in the meeting.
Opinions
The council brought up some big hesitancies and several specific questions about some of the options. Fifth Ward councilperson Don Waterman and Buffaloe brought up price tags — Waterman, the cost of transferring recyclables, and Buffaloe, the imprecise breakdown of finances and timing, especially with building on the existing site. Keys said she has a meeting with the Mid-Missouri Solid Waste Management District this week, and transfer would be discussed.
Waterman also asked about manpower. Vasquez said this new facility would require four positions to operate the machines in the recycling facility — not including supervisors or other personnel present — as opposed to the 14 it took at the original building.
Keys said what could help with any of the three rebuilding options is a fabric building, like a tent, to provide shelter from the elements for a sorting machine and bailer. Fourth Ward councilperson Nick Foster brought up the need to contain litter if this were used.
Foster and Sixth Ward councilperson Betsy Peters said the third option was not their top choice.
Timeline and finances
In the latter part of the pre-council meeting, Keys, on her first night as director of Columbia Utilities, gave a presentation on the overall finances of solid waste management. She reported the department was operating on "more than a $3 million loss. Just so we're all on the same page," Keys said.
The current estimate for insurance payout is "in the range of $3-4 million," Keys said, but, "there's still a lot of work to be done to finalize that number." To pay for this project, the department will look to bonds, to the state for "special financing" and to cash reserves.
A very "high-level" timeline, Vasquez said, would be 30 months — two and a half years — for the new facility to be built and operational.
"We would estimate that maybe a year-ish, maybe less, could be shaved off," based on past RRT projects in other states, Vasquez said.
A project of this scale requires a "long lead time," Keys said, given the intricacies of evaluation and construction.
Temporary options like a transfer station can be set up in a few months, the presentation said, and the recycling facility could be in operation in 18 months with "emergency provisions" and a fabric building.
Regular council meeting
Various city leaders will host office hours for residents to discuss potential impacts of state and federal executive orders.
Dates, times and locations are:
- 10 a.m. to noon June 7 with Foster and city staff at Conference Room 1A at Daniel Boone City Building, 701 E. Broadway.
- 1-3 p.m. June 9 with Buffaloe and city staff at the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department, 1005 W. Worley St.
- 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. June 11 with Third Ward councilperson Jacque Sample and city staff at the Columbia Fire Department's Fire Training Academy, 700 Big Bear Blvd.
- 2-4 p.m. June 15 with First Ward councilperson Valerie Carroll and city staff at the Friends Room of the Columbia Public Library, 100 W. Broadway.
Tuesday is the deadline to file for the Second Ward council seat. So far, Vera Elwood and Ken Rice have filed for candidacy after Lisa Meyer resigned from her seat.
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