Minutes of SWANA Rocky Mountain Chapter Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

20 May, 2009, Telephone Conference Call

ATTENDANCE:

Present: Brenna Barrett, Debby Barton, John Briest, Cameron Beul*, Stephen Gillette, Susie Gordon, Jerry Henderson*, Tom Schweitzer**, Cathryn Stewart, Tom Strickland

Absent: Curt Ahrendsen, Kathy Andrew, Neil Nowak, Dick Sprague

Others present: None

Attendance Notations:

* - Member arrived after meeting called to order

** - Member left before meeting ended

*** - Individual joined via telephone conference call

Minutes are in the order of the agenda and not necessarily in order of discussions.

CALL TO ORDER: Meeting called to order by Stewart at 7:04 am as 8 of 14 directors present.

MINUTES:

April meeting minutes were previously emailed and approved by e-vote.

ADOPTION OF AGENDA:

Strickland/Gordon moved/seconded to adopt the agenda as amended. Motion carried unanimously.

TREASURER:

Gillette stated checking account balance is $17,261.67 and savings account balance is $19,522.02 with no outstanding bills.

COMMITTEE REPORTS and ASSIGNMENTS:

Membership: Andrew emailed membership report with apology for being unable to attend the meeting. There are 160 members with two “new” members: Robert Peterson who changed employers and an individual from BoMag. She will be sending welcome letters. There are 8 members suspended. Gordon will try to contact Anita Comer. Stewart will try contacting Judson Staton.

Technical Program/Meetings:

Fugitive Dust/Storm Water Management: Thank you letters to the three presenters have been sent out. The session was well received.

Webinar/Third Quarter training: No report.

Defensive Driving: This has been withdrawn as a consideration for third quarter training.

Liners and Covers: Discussion held that Joe Kaul has a full program and is willing to make a presentation in July. Stewart will follow up with him and Barton will help with the Brochure development. Location to be considered will be the Geotech conference/training room.

School District E-Waste: Gordon and Barrett commented that Kim Bartel from US EPA Region 8 has been in contact with several school districts in Colorado that would like to have a technical session on e-waste options for schools, especially in light of current funding issues. Beul, Barrett and Gordon will research and develop a draft agenda and presenter list for a session to be held in July or August.

Dual Presentation: Discussion held to consider having a full day session with a morning session for the liners/cover and the afternoon session for school e-waste or reverse. Consensus was to consider 21 July (third Tuesday) as the day to have the two sessions. If a different date is needed, the group will communicate with the Board.

Annual Meeting:

Logistics including tour(s): Discussion held that a Thursday tour should be considered. Among the options are Fort Carson Sustainable program (Frank Kinder), University of Colorado – Colorado Springs (USCC) – Sustainable Program, Colorado Springs Power Plant Fly Ash recycling, El Paso County HHW, and Waste Connections Fountain Landfill. Consensus was to decide on the tour(s) by the June Board meeting. One suggestion was made to have an extended Thursday lunch to be held from noon to about 1:45 or 2:00 and include the annual business meeting at the end of the lunch in order to capture membership without having to lose them due to tour delays.

Registration Fee: Discussion held on what is a reasonable registration fee to pay for meals and incidentals. The motel lodging room fee is less than Golden’s last year. Consensus was to have a set date for registration fee’s to increase for late sign ups. Barton/Gillette moved/seconded to set the member registration fee at member rate of $180 per person, non member rate of $230 and a late fee increase of $30 for registration received late (after 7 September) as increased fee would be used towards any increased incidental costs including tours, scholarships and similar. Motion carried unanimously.

Sponsors: Nowak not present so no report was given. He has indicated in past emails that sponsorship may be about the same as last year. Further discussion was tabled until the June Board meeting.

Program:

Presentations: Ahrendsen not present. Beul stated he had received one response with five possible abstracts. Topics included: Boulder County Zero Waste, Pay As You Throw, Reducing Transfer Station Haul Costs, Edgewater Colorado Recycling, and Social Marketing. Another topic presented to the Board including Alternative Energy uses of landfills before and after closure including Solar Panels, Solar Collectors, Wind Power and similar. Governor’s Energy Office (Alice Madden) is willing to make a presentation at the annual conference. A panel discussion on addressing economic issues for the solid waste industry was proposed and the following individuals may be considered as panel members: Mark Adams (Waste Connections - Transportation), Steve Wampler (AquAeTer – Consultant), Chuck Schmidt (Waste Management – Recycling) and Bob Edmiston (Mesa County – Landfill). Laurie Batchelder Adams would be invited to moderate the panel. Strickland will work with Ahrendsen on getting a draft agenda to post to the website. Motivational speaker is being researched. Ahrendsen will be asked to send notice of the next conference call to all the Board members so that any who wish to join in the discussion may do so.

Entertainment: No discussion on this was held.

Scholarship: Nothing to report.

Nominations: No further nominations presented at this time as the Board has 14 active members. Ballot will be developed and prepared for the annual meeting.

Legislative: Nowak sent out current legislative table. Gordon commented that the advanced tire fee and the e-waste task force bills will be or may have already been signed. Nowak has been keeping the Board informed of national issues. Consensus was this was appreciated.

International Board: No report as Sprague was absent.

Web site/Webmaster: Strickland reported the website is going well. The sponsors ads and visibility has been improved as well as the look of the website. There has been a faster turn around time for posting to the website. Job opening information should be sent to Strickland to have posted to the website. There will be an automatic deletion of any jobs posted so no calendaring is needed to remember when to remove outdated or closed openings. He asked that job opening information also include contact name for follow up as needed before posting the announcement. Paypal options for the annual meeting and the Road-E-O will be started for the website. In addition, the website will be updated to allow for change in registration fees for late registrants to the event.

Newsletter: Henderson presented the following topics for consideration in the next newsletter, current assignments are in parentheses. Henderson asked if anyone had photos of various sessions or of interest to send to give more variety to the newsletter. Henderson will send out reminder notices to the Board members before the June meeting. Tentative deadline for articles was set as 23 June which is one week after the June Board meeting.

President’s Corner (Stewart)

April Technical Session Summary

Road-E-O (Strickland)

Third Quarter Technical Session

Web feature updates & advertising benefits (Strickland)

Annual Meeting update (Ahrendsen)

Committee Overviews (Barton?)

New Member Highlights (Andrew?)

SWANA-CO History Update (Sprague)

Others?

Road-E-O: The interest group met and included Denver, Thornton, Longmont and Waste Connections. They agreed that a Road-E-O will be held. Tentative date selected is 1 August 2009 but a location has to be found. Strickland will work with Gillette on tracking money. The Board in the past has paid for the insurance. Barton/Schweitzer moved/seconded to authorize Strickland to obtain the necessary insurance for the Road-E-O which will be paid by Colorado SWANA. Motion carried. Discussion held on whether the Board should make a motion to pay for the winner’s trip to the National Road-E-O to be held in Fort Largo, FL. Consensus was to discuss further during the July meeting. Any needs for “seed” money as has been done in the past will be brought to the Board during the June meeting. Strickland stated that volunteers will be requested for the Road-E-O.

OLD BUSINESS:

Bylaws review: Report will be given during the July Board meeting.

NEW BUSINESS:

SWANA History Project: No report was given as Sprague was not present.

Air Quality Guidance Document Stakeholder Interest: Briest briefly summarized this topic by asking the Board to support approaching the Air Pollution Control Division with an offer to assist in developing guidelines and standardized inspection forms for the solid waste industry so the industry could stay in compliance in a consistent manner for the entire state with the recognition there would some individual site differences. The Solid Waste Unit has developed stakeholder groups to assist in developing guidelines. The chapter could offer a similar resource to the Air Pollution Division. Discussion held that as the chapter represents private and public entities involved in various solid waste operations, we could provide a valuable resource to the division. In addition, national SWANA has been working on national Air Quality issues which will be impacting the state solid waste industry too. Consensus of the Board members present (Schweitzer had to leave and was not present for this discussion) was to pursue an offer with the Air Quality Pollution Division to assist in any stakeholder guidance discussions. Stewart will talk to Mike Silverstein with the planning and policy program of Air Quality to discuss this potential. She and Briest will work on drafting a letter as a follow up. A suggestion was made to invite the Air Quality Division to give a “state of the state” in air quality issues in the same manner that Charles Johnson for the Solid Waste Unit provides the information.

Next Board Meeting: The next Board meeting will be Tuesday, 16 June 2009 beginning at 7 am at Golder and Associates conference room, 44 Union Boulevard, Suite 300, Lakewood, CO 80228.

ADJOURNMENT:

As all items on the agenda were covered and there being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 8:32 am.

Respectfully submitted,

Deborah Barton
Secretary