Travis County Commissioners Court
November 23, 2004
Item 5
Number 5 is receive status reports from waste management, incorporated and
browning-ferris industries on efforts to acquire greenfield sites for new
landfills. Since you are already there, we can start with waste management.
And if we can get the b.f.i. Representatives to come forth. A little bit more
than six months ago we thought it would be a good idea to set aside a little
time to try to find green sites to relocate the landfills in northeast Travis
County to these new sites and basically just summarizes the efforts that have
been made and any results you can share with us.
>> judge, my name is john joseph, representative -- a lawyer
representing waste management. We have submitted to the -- to you and the
remainder of the court dated the 22nd a summary of where we are in writing
as far as our greenfield site search is concerned. And, judge, we have identified
a conglomeration of approximately 1200 acres of property that is outside of
Travis County that we think is a possible greenfield site. We identified that
site, I believe, about 75, 80 days ago. I think we first started indicating
that we were looking at that and about three other sites about a month after,
maybe 45 days after the -- we agreed to do a search for the greenfield site.
We excluded approximately four sites, three or four sites as greenfield sites.
One of them was directly off of the southern runway, eastern most runway of
the Austin bergstrom international airport. One of them was a fairly large
tract that was surrounding basically what is -- you see [inaudible] which
is close to the prairie land neighborhood, and we thought although that might
have been a good greenfield site for our landfill, from a political standpoint
it probably wasn't the ideal place to at least initially look. We identified
another tract or conglomeration of tracts not in Travis County consisting
of about 1100 or 1200 acres. It proved to have some significant waterways
and potential critical environmental areas in it and we decided to opt out
of that site as well. We are presently negotiating a representation agreement
with a real estate broker here in Travis County and we will over the next
60 to 90 days attempt to tie up this 1200 acres with letters of intent so
that we can begin a more site specific evaluation of this site as a greenfield
type 1 landfill site.
>> so how long does it normally take to move from let's say
where you believe you are now to doing the due diligence and I guess if the
property owners are motivated to sell, et cetera, to really make a call about
appropriateness of the site and then likelihood of acquisition is what I知
saying?
>> judge, from a development standpoint, I can tell you that
a norm will course of things -- normal course of things in development it
usually runs about a year to two years from the time you decide a site is
good for a commercial endeavor and you do your due diligence and your on-site
evaluation and begin your development and the permitting process through the
county and the city to get on that site. This one is encumbered as well by
the fact you have to go to the state, tceq, to get a type 1 landfill. I think
the initial phase of it would probably take a year or more. More like a year
and a half or two years to make the evaluation of whether or not this was
a -- from a geological standpoint a site that would be usable for a type 1
landfill.
>> but do you go to tceq and try to get some sort of preliminary
determination from the state about the suitability of a particular tract for
a type 1 landfill or are you forced to, I guess, get an option to purchase,
then go and get the permit, or do you try to get a permit first? You see what
I知 saying?
>> steve jacobs, waste management of Texas. Judge, Commissioners,
basically what we would do in this instance is after we got a letter of intent
signed that gave us access to the property, we would do some more detailed
studies. There's not a lot we can do from looking over the fence to tell whether
the geology is suitable. We can look at basic issues like airports, floodplains,
access, those kind of things we can get from maps. We've done that on this
tract. Normally what we would do is go in and make a preliminary geotechnical
study to see whether subsurface conditions were suitable for the landfills
and that's part of the tceq regulations. It's very specific, and we do this
for a living so we can tell pretty quickly whether this site is worth going
through the exhaustive effort to try to permit the tract. There is no process
to go to the state and say, you know, will you give us a green light or a
flashing yellow light or some indication that you will love this site later
on. We have to go through a very detailed permit application process which
normally takes, if nobody opposes the facility, you are probably looking at
in the three-year range after we get through the preliminary stuff with the
property owners like purchasing the land or at least getting an option on
it. If there's opposition to the site, you are in the five- to seven-year
time frame to get the permit where you could actually start construction.
>> so you would need the property owners' authorization I
guess due to subsurface determination.
>> yes. They kind of get testy if you go out and start digging
holes.
>> letter of intent and permission from the landowners to
conduct geological and on-site investigations of their property. We wouldn't
be able to do that without some sort of permission from the landowners unless
y'all were to come in and condemn the whole thing in advance and then give
us permission to go o but the normal course of things we get a letter of intent
and a consent from the property owners for that first phase, and then after
that an option agreement to continue that evaluation and take-on put together
a permit and get to it the tceq. But that second step is very expensive. It
usually requires payment of significant sums of money for the property owners
for auction fees, which are generally non-refundable if you choose not to
elect the option to buy. On top of that is putting together the permit to
submit to the tceq.
>> in step 1 you try to get some indication of the property
owners' willingness to sell subject to all of the due diligence being positive.
>> we will have a general agreement, the general terms of
a sale and purchase established in a letter of intent. It's not binding as
a contract to purchase. We will have to follow that up with -- after we do
our initial due diligence, with a purchase and sale agreement, which would
be a comprehensive agreement on the ultimate purchase of the property. Beginning
with initial phases of investigation and continuing on through permitting
processes and then culminating in the issuance of permits and the purchase
of the property or the purchase of the property and then the issuance of permits.
>> okay. Questions?
>> yeah, I have a few, judge.
>> okay.
>> this particular site that you are looking at is acreage
that you are looking to relocate for a new greenfield site, is that adequate
enough and how much year of service would that particular acreage provide?
As far as operating a landfill.
>> Commissioner, basically what we did on this search is
look for tracts of land or multiple tracts that could be consolidated into
something at least 750-acre. This particular parcel is in the neighborhood
of 1200. We have not gone into -- there's features to the facility that will
dictate how the landfill itself will be built so there's no way I could sit
here and say that it would generate x amount of years of capacity if we did
that. We're nowhere near that point yet. That's something we'll have to look
at. What we tried to do is find a tract big enough to allow for adequate buffers
significantly larger than what's required by current state rules and to avoid
any, you know, fatal flaw features such as floodplains or other issues that
could come into play.
>> and number 2 is from previous testimony it was said that
you could actually -- if everything goes smoothly, you could actually acquire
-- not acquire, but end up in an operation [indiscernible] as far as dealing
with solid waste going through all the hoops and stuff less than five years.
Is that still predicated on what you are talking about here this morning?
>> if we had full access to the property today and we were
mobilized to go out and start the work, you could potentially have the permit
in hand in three to five years and then start the construction process. So
the answer to that is yes. If everything falls perfectly in line. I've been
doing this since 1978 and never seen that happen.
>> okay. Of course, if we can offer assistance to speed that
along, I would definitely be willing to do that as far as the procession is
concerned. Is this the only site that's left out of all the sites that you
looked at that's promising of the number of tracts you had on the table?
>> as john said earlier, we actually looked at a lot more
than we mentioned in the update letter.
>> how many did you really look at?
>> we really looked at I believe it was five of them where
we sat down with a map and looked --
>> pardon me?
>> five facilities is what we looked at. It's very difficult
to find any large acreage in Travis County and the neighboring counties. We
started getting out fairly distant from --
>> first off let me say that it was -- I don't think we located
any single tracts, any tracts of land that were under individual ownership
that were large enough, 750 acres or more, to justify us looking at. Every
-- every site that we looked at was -- we would have to put the tract together
from separate ownerships. None of them were individual ownership. The hilgers
property that we looked at early on that we sent the court on letter on was
on in three separate ownerships, although three families, there weren't any
presented to us. And I had three real estate brokers looking in Travis County
and the surrounding Travis County and they brought me nothing that showed
anything that was large enough and single ownership. Everything that was brought
to us requires that -- it's all under separate ownership and we have to put
it all together into a bigger tract.
>> I don't have anything -- especially with the 1200-acre
tract, I have nothing in writing per se on that.
>> well, I sent to the court and you've got a copy of all
of these.
>> I have a copy of some things around the bergstrom site,
stuff like that.
>> I sent you a copy-aoe.
>> I have three letters from you and basically -- they basically
talked about -- well, a letter dated 5-13-04, another letter dated 6- 28-04
and another one related stuff around bird nest. Those are three inquiries
--
>> those are the three updates.
>> the three updates. Well, since April 23rd, since April
23rd of 2004, those are the only three that I have had in my office relating
to this status report of looking for another site. Now, this what you bring
me this morning, the 1200-acre site is not in writing nowhere in this report.
Now, if you have supplied that to my office, we didn't get it. Now, did you
provide that to me in writing?
>> I provided three updates to --
>> well, the three updates that I have, none of them relate
to this 1200-acre site.
>> the November 22nd e-mail from yesterday, I know -- did
you e-mail it to the whole court?
>> I e-mailed it to cheryl at her request so she could deliver
it to remainder of the court.
>> I was at the racing commission all day yesterday.
>> I was at the racing commission yesterday.
>> and I sent this to ms. Thornson and -- now, is the whole
court on the e-mail? I know we -- do you know?
>> [inaudible].
>> okay. Be that as it may, let's get back to -- let me talk
about another situation that's I think is pertinent and that is -- when did
you enter into an agreement or did you enter into an agreement with Williamson
county as far as an operator and contractor of a landfill? In Williamson county.
>> I believe waste management took over that operating contract
in 1985. I could be off a couple years. That was about when waste management
acquired the company that had the operating contract.
>> okay. Now, recently I heard on the news about hutto and
things like that, residents up in hutto are not being made aware of an agreement
of a little more than 573 acres up in Williamson county and around hutto,
and of course according to sources, this particular agreement between you
and amended agreement which you guys then the contractor and operator of this
landfill was entered into in October of 2003. The reason why I called this
question was because in November -- in November of 2003, Travis County had
an original summit, capco was there, of course Travis County [indiscernible]
and of course you and other landfill operators were invited to attend. The
meat of that meeting and the heart of that meeting was looking at what we're
talking about now, landfills as far as maybe looking at the possibility of
not expanding the current site off 290, but also looking into regionalizing
to look at new greenfield space as far as providing a regional site. And I
know -- remember specifically it was posed at that time were you involved
in looking into new greenfield or new space in landfill operational in this
particular region. Of course, none of these things were actually alluded to
so there has been expansion capabilities, in fact, if my source are correct
here, this agreement was reached and amended thoroughly in November -- in
October of 2003 with that expansion possibility. So the question comes back
to me why wasn't this disclosed as far as operating a landfill right adjacent
to Travis County that has a regional aspects to it and you are want to go
expand your operations off of 290 at the eastern landfill site, the 290 east
landfill. It doesn't mix, it doesn't match, and I知 just wondering if you
can explain and clarify that to me.
>> it's not a greenfield site and that wasn't part of our
greenfield site search.
>> well, this was news to me that you was in operation of
that particular site and that was never disclosed to us at all as knowing
this was one of the sites you were dealing with.
>> we were asked to do a greenfield site search and that's
what we did. And we gave you updates on our efforts as far as the greenfield
sites search from the beginning.
>> can I ask a question in a slightly different way?
>> go ahead.
>> just refresh my memory, how large is the current w.m.i.
Site off 290? The permitted footprint.
>> approximately 300 acres.
>> and you are looking at something 1200 acres, substantially
larger as a buffer and what everybody likes to bring up the crown jewel of
how to do these things, be your own buffer. That was about 600 and this is
double as far as be your oefpb buffer. Certainly we would have this opportunity
if this due diligence worked out that not only would you be in a place bigger
than where you are right now, it's four times as big as where you are right
now and double what everybody considers to be the crown jewel of how to do
something in terms of be your own buffer. Sorry I知 giving such a plug to
mr. Gregory, but he's to be congratulated what he's done being a good neighbor,
it would be double in terms of be your own buffer. 1200 acres is a lot of
acreage.
>> about how far away is the nearest residential unit whether
single family or multi-family.
>> to my knowledge there's no multi-family within any close
proximity to the property. And I don't think that there is a neighborhood
by the definition that you all had come up with under the draft ordinance
was in close proximity to this area here. Or there are some residences, but
they are fairly scattered and the property is mostly farmland.
>> okay. Let's get b.f.i. Up here on the hot seat.
>> judge, let me introduce myself. I知 brad dugas, the general
manager for b.f.i.
>> oh, okay.
>> they are all back there. Yeah, I just moved here in March
and i've got to tell you I was wondering what those webs were between my toes
and now I know, it's awfully wet here and getting more so as we speak while
we're in here dry. Judge, i'd almost say that we would do ditto, but we did
a little differently than where waste is at. We identified a lot of properties
with the minimum acreage of 500 acres, looking for 1,000 acres as the goal.
And we actually identified properties smaller than that, but we did them in-house
with our engineering firm. Going out trying to identify property ownership.
Maximum space, minimum ownership. That was the goal. We identified well over
30 properties. We quickly eliminated about 20 of those, a little less than
that, about 18, and came down to a core of 12 properties. And I went out personally
and did a windshield drive-by of all of these properties out there and took
a look at them both within the county and outside the county. And we gave
them several hierarchy of rankings of matrix criteria. One being a transportation
mode in proximity to what we consider the sepb troeud of generation of waste
in the area of 35 and 183 more or less just assuming that growth is headed
that direction. And anything outside of 30 miles of that we put in a separate
level of our matrix because that is a different game. You have to put in --
now you are looking at another site of a transfer station location in there.
So about half of our properties that we had identified in this 12 or so initially
fell inside that 30-mile radius and the rest were outside. So we have pursued
that upper echelon of properties that we've looked at so far. We've made hard
offers on three and they've all been denied. One of the upper echelon properties
we're in negotiations continuing on it. It's a fairly large tract of land.
But we are just progressively moving down in our ranking at this point trying
to come up with a property that will -- an ownership that will allow the ditto
part of what they are going to do. We've got to go in and do the site geology
work and find out what's going on there. In a nutshell, that is what we have
been doing for the last six months. And just for the record, I found data
as I moved in and looked at the files that b.f.i. Was aggressively pursuing
site searches for property as early as 2000. So they've been in this process
for a while.
>> let me ask you this. Did you -- of the 12 properties that
you kind of narrowed two out of the 30 that you looked at, you narrowed it
down to 12, you say you narrowed it down to three I guess of those 12. Due
rank those I guess within the 12 and also if the three -- of those 12, is
there any possibility of revisiting them or you just narrowed it down to three
and that's it? In other words, has the door been closed on those 12 that you
narrowed it down to per se from the 30?
>> Commissioner, let me put that a different way. We have
a list of 12 we're continuing to work on, but we have made offers to the first
three and they have all been denied.
>> all right.
>> the property owners were not interested in selling their
property. And we've done that through a real estate broker at that point in
time, but up to this point we've done it from an engineering perspective trying
to make sure that it met the flood plain geologic criteria and transportation
access mode. Does that answer that a little more?
>> yes, it does, and I guess my point is if there was additional
time awarded, because I知 going to stay on this until I知 out of here and
I知 going to be here for a while, but as far as going back and revisiting
these persons again that you think you need to, what adequate time do you
think you need to come back with that type negotiation still in process?
>> Commissioner, I can't put a finger on that.
>> 20 days, 30 days, 40 days, 50 days, 60 days, 90 days?
>> I will tell you we are aggressively communicating with
the people as we are going down the list and we're going to go until we find
one. It's our goal to find a replacement site to sunset farms. We know there's
an end date out there at some point in time and we're going to keep moving
until we find a site.
>> I知 going to make a request until later on, I don't know
if the court will go along, but I guess my last point is to w.m.i. And I know
maybe somebody may have some questions from b.f.i., But I had one more question
I didn't get to get it in when I was talking to w.m.i. And that is the site
in and around the airport. You know, when we discussed the -- adopting a solid
waste ordinance that would cover landfills, one of the no-nos in that ordinance
was sites around the airport, especially because of the -- it affecting, you
know, flight and birds and all this other kind of stuff. And of course that
was something, but of course the f.a.a. [indiscernible] anyway. And my question
to you is those sites that you -- that were recommended through your search,
and you say you had a total of six, some of those appear to be in and around
the airport. Can you sphraoeupb why that was done?
>> only one was near the airport. It was offered to us by
the hilgers family. I felt it was incumbent upon me to let the court know
they came to us and we rejected it out of hand because of the proximity to
the airport and the prohibition of landfills at that local with respect to
the airport. I didn't seek it out.
>> they came to you.
>> yes.
>> that was kind of puzzling. I知 gland you explained that
because it's very puzzling since you've been here with the history.
>> the hilgers family came to us and we rejected it, but
we felt it was important to let the court now that was a piece of property
offered to us and we rejected it.
>> as I asked the b.f.i. Representative and I知 going to
ask you guys, I know you are going to need more time, if you are looking at
1200 acres, that's great and I hope you get it. In your endeavor and also
b.f.i., But that's going to be a later request that will be made at this point.
So anyway, those are just some of the questions I had at this time, and of
course I知 not going to give up on the solid waste siting ordinance that covers
land fist. I think there is still something needed and I understand the city
of Austin is also looking to privatize some landfill sites. So far landfill
operator, rather. So I don't know how that's going to go, but they are looking
at sites. And I heard there are birds flying around off 812 again, so I don't
know what that's supposed to mean.
>> questions regarding number 5? Anything else?
>> maybe a little motion on this particular item that says
if it's accepted by the court since they are vigorously looking for a site
that they maybe report to to us in 90 to 120 days on another report where
they are on they are looking for a new greenfield site for relocation.
>> just put an agenda item on.
>> all right. We'll do that then.
>> let Commissioner Davis know what progress you've made
in 90 days, in fact, let the whole court know.
>> number 4, the one thing that I did was adding to the plat
note the following language.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 3:02 PM