Western Regional Waste Management Committee Meeting Minutes Meeting Information: Date: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 Time: 6:00pm – 8:50pm Place: Corner Brook Pepsi Centre Canada Games Place, Corner Brook, NL Present were: Cynthia Downey Town of Stephenville Crossing Eileen Hann Town of Port au Port East Gary Bishop Town of Pasadena Donna Luther City of Corner Brook Linda Chaisson City of Corner Brook Sheila Mercer Town of Deer Lake (had to leave meeting at 8:25pm) Jerry Martin Town of Hampden (For Joan Parsons) Doug Mills NPRSB (NorPen) Don Downer Chair, WRWMC Pauline Anderson Office Administrator, WRWMC Wayne Manuel Bae NewPlan Boyd Wright Department of Municipal Affairs Cory Grandy Department of Municipal Affairs Eli Bishop Pollards Point, Technical Committee Member Rhea Hutchings Corner Brook, Technical Committee Chairperson Tony Oxford Cox’s Cove, Technical Committee Member Joined via Telephone Ashley Burke MMSB Business Development Officer Missing with Apologies: Richard Farrell Town of Channel-Port aux Basques Walter Nicolle Town of Rocky Harbour Tony Blanchard Humber Economic Development Board (Irishtown) Geraldine Porter Local Service District in Bay St. George South Call to Order The meeting was called to order by new Chairman Don Downer at 6:15pm when quorum was reached. Ashley Burke of MMSB joined the meeting via telephone at 6:10pm. Agenda for this meeting includes: 1. Review and approval of May 26, 2011 WRWM Committee Minutes 2. Business Arising: a. Reinstatement of the Technical Committee b. Tours of Eastern and Central Waste Management Facilities (August 21-23?) c. Chairman’s meetings with Sub-regional committees - Southwest Coast; Bay St. Georges; and, Long Range. d. Scheduling of meeting with Michelle Marley from MMSB (ICI) e. Western Regional Waste Management Coordinator Hiring Process 3. Discussion on the sub-regions of WRWM and other areas 4. Communications 5. Cory Grandy – updates, questions and answers. 6. Wayne Manuel - questions and answers. 7. Any updates or questions resulting from Committee members’ discussions/meetings with surrounding communities: Bay St. George, Southern NL, White Bay, Pasadena; Rocky Harbour, Gillams, Corner Brook, Deer Lake, Humber Economic Development Board. 8. Reference material for completion of committee member’s travel expenses 9. Discussion of Summer Meeting Schedule (July and August). Also, discuss work objectives for the next 3-4 months. 10. Other 2 1. Review and approval of May 26, 2011 WRWM Committee Minutes One minor change was made to the attendees list from the May 26th meeting. Minutes were adopted with that one minor change. 2. Business Arising: a. Reinstatement of the Technical Committee The purpose of reinstating the Technical Committee is to have a group of people with the skills required to review material and details provided by the consultants and make recommendations to the WRWM Committee. The first meeting of the Technical Committee will be on Thursday, July 28th at 10am in the WRWM office on West Street. There are now four confirmed members of the Technical Committee with one other pending. Rhea Hutchings, Supervisor of Sustainable Development with the City of Corner Brook agreed to be the chairperson for the Technical Committee. This position will require her to pass along the recommendations from the Technical Committee to the WRWM Committee at their regular meetings each month. Other confirmed Technical Committee members include Tony Oxford (Cox’s Cove), Eli Bishop (White Bay) and Tom O’Brien (Bay St. George). We are awaiting confirmation of a member from the Port aux Basques and Daniel’s Harbour areas. Technical Committee members present at tonight’s meeting feel that important issues such focusing on transfer stations, communication with the public, illegal dumping and ensuring that the sites/transfer stations are made as welcoming as possible to draw people to use them rather than dumping their garbage in the woods, need to be dealt with in the near future. The Western Regional Waste Management Coordinator should be hired sometime in July and he/she will work with the Technical and WRWM Committee members with many of these issues. Education is key to the success of waste management and overcoming, or finding solutions to the various issues involved. b. Tours of Eastern and Central Waste Management Facilities (August 21-23?) During meeting discussions, it was determined that neither July nor August would work in arranging the WRWM committee to travel to Eastern and Central to tour the facilities and transfer stations. It was suggested that we change the tour to September 15-17. This would be based solely on whether Central would be acceptable to having someone come in on a Saturday morning to provide the committee with the tour. Don will check into this and confirm with the Committee if these dates work with the Eastern and Central facilities. c. Chairman’s meetings with Sub-regional committees - Southwest Coast; Bay St. Georges; and, Long Range. Don met with all three existing sub-regional committees to discuss the issues for each area. He met with Bay St. George on May 30, 2011; Southwest Coast on June 13, 2011; and, Long Range on June 27, 2011. 3 d. Scheduling of meeting with Michelle Marley from MMSB (ICI) To be brought forward to next meeting. Need to coordinate with Michelle regarding her attending a future meeting with the committee. e. Western Regional Waste Management Coordinator Hiring Process We received 13 applicants for this position through our advertising in The Western Star, The Telegram and the Career Beacon website. We are hoping to schedule the interviews for Wednesday, July 6th and have the hiring done within 2 weeks of the interviews. We will be gaining the approval of Ashley Burke (MMSB) the WRWM Committee before the job is offered to the successful candidate. The hiring committee is committed to proceeding through this hiring process efficiently and with due diligence. 3. Discussion on the sub-regions of WRWM and other areas An initial meeting was held with representatives from communities included within the Corner Brook Sub-region on June 21 in Corner Brook City Hall. This sub-region includes the communities of Corner Brook, Cox’s Cove, Frenchman’s Cove, Gillams, Hughes Brook, Humber Arm South, Humber Village, Irishtown-Summerside, Lark Harbour, Little Rapids, Massey Drive, McIvers, Meadows, Mt. Moriah, Pasadena, Steady Brook and York Harbour. A second meeting of this group is scheduled to take place at 7pm on July 21st. Mayor Greeley offered the ‘New” Corner Brook City Hall as the venue for this meeting. An initial meeting was held with representatives from communities included within the Deer Lake Sub-region on June 22 in Hodder Memorial Stadium in Deer Lake. This sub- region includes the communities of Beaches, Cormack, Deer Lake, Glenburnie – Birchy Head – Shoal Brook, Hampden, Howley, Jackson’s Arm, Pollard’s Point, Pynns Brook, Reidville, Sop’s Arm, St. Jude’s, Trout River and Woody Point. A second meeting of this group is scheduled to take place at 1pm on July 22 at the same venue. The Sub-regions will be looking into the closing of existing sites in their areas as well as dealing with consolidation of the interim landfill sites. The official transfer sites will be determined by the research conducted by Bae NewPlan for each sub-region. It has been determined that the Bay St. Georges site will most likely become a transfer station once decisions need to be made. 4. Communications This is a very important issue in the Western Region and has been the cause of many misunderstandings regarding Western Regional Waste Management in the past. We are working to improve communication between the communities, sub-regions and the public to ensure everyone has the correct and most updated information regarding Western Waste Management. We will be using email distribution lists, newsletters, public websites and sub-regional committee meetings to help improve the lines of communications. Also, the new Western Regional Waste Management Coordinator will work closely with the Corner Brook office and the difference committees in order to improve upon communications. 4 The Coordinator and Office personnel will work together to improve communications as well by looking into social media options such as facebook and twitter. The media is more tuned into information sourced through this method. Any other media contact is to be done either through the Chairman, Municipal Affairs or possibly the Coordinator so WRWM and Technical Committee members will not be asked to speak with the media on their own but asked to direct media interest to the Waste Management Office. The public website should be up and running by the end of July and the committee agreed that all approved/adopted committee meeting minutes should go onto the website so the public can be made aware of the meeting discussions. If there are any motions made in the meetings, they can be posted to the website prior to the adoption of the minutes as motions have already been officially adopted by the committee as soon as they are made. 5. Cory Grandy – updates, questions and answers. After the motion made at the March 31st meeting (The Western Regional Waste Management Committee agrees to transport waste to Central pending government provide a transportation solution acceptable to the committee), no further research was conducted on the regional facility site. The committee fears that since the motion has basically halted further research as the ‘trucking to Central’ option depends on the result of the Government’s transportation subsidy (which we have been informed could take anywhere from a few months up to Spring of 2012) that we could fall behind in the project timeline if we don’t proceed with at least some research needed regarding the Western Facility or transfer stations. Cory cannot guess when a decision will be made regarding the transportation subsidy and could only confirm that the analysis has been started.