Sustainability Advisory Board Agenda and Packet 2021 02 17

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Sustainability Advisory Board Meeting Minutes January 20, 2021 Re Item 12, Boulder County Compost Facility, above: Subject: LSAB Recommendation to Boulder County Commissioners and Louisville City Council Re: A Boulder County -based Composting Site, proposed for the site of the old Rainbow Nursery, 5762 N 107th St, Longmont, CO. Date: 20-Jan-2021 The members of Louisville's Sustainability Advisory Board (LSAB) unanimously endorse and support the proposal by Boulder County to develop and operate a Compost Processing Facility at the site of the old Rainbow Nursery, 5762 N 107th St, south of Longmont. And we encourage Louisville's City Council to also endorse and support that proposal to develop and operate that local -area Compost Processing Facility. • For eleven years, the City of Louisville has had in place a Residential Waste -Collection Program for about 5,000 of our residential addresses, which now includes no -charge compost collection for those residents. • Collection of compostable materials from all our residents have yielded app 1,500 tons per year. • Currently, an estimated 49,000 tons of organic waste are landfilled from Boulder County annually. • To -date, all the tons of Louisville's compostable materials have been hauled to Al Organics, a compost -processing site located in Keenesburg CO. That's a 76-mile roundtrip for each 10-yd truckload, for between 11 and 21 truckloads per month (depending on which season of the year). • Organic waste collected within the rest of the County must also currently be transported for processing to Al Organics' Keenesburg facility. For Boulder's compost haulers, that's a 100- mile roundtrip that greatly increases the cost, wear and tear on trucks and roads, and greenhouse -gas footprint for composting within our region. • A publicly owned compost facility in Boulder County will fulfill a long-standing community need for local zero -waste infrastructure, to meet the goals within Boulder County's Zero Waste Action Plan, Environmental Sustainability Plan, and Climate Action Initiatives. • The County worked with their consultant Resource Recycling Systems (RRS) to evaluate a number of potential sites for a compost facility, and concluded that the old Rainbow Nursery site, 5762 N 107th St, Longmont, (on US Hwy-287, app'/z mile south of CO Hwy-52) was the best and most centrally located site within the County to provide for more convenient use for haulers and residents from all of the cities in Boulder County. • Per RRS, the proximity of this site and the expected cost savings for compostable-waste generators and haulers will divert an additional 18,500 tons of organic waste that is currently going to the landfill —a 44% increase over the 42,000 tons currently collected, with a resultant significant decrease in climate emissions (equivalent to 5,400 tons of CO2 annually). • Roundtrips to the proposed site and back to Louisville would be reduced from 76 miles to 18 miles. Those trips would be along the same major roads that haulers now use to go out to Keenesburg and back, so no additional truck traffic would occur in any new areas. Our current residential -waste hauler — Republic Services — would see a savings of 58 miles and at least one hour of driving time for each truckload. • Reducing transportation distances and costs will enable lower compost collection costs within our respective east -county communities. It will also enable the production of compost that can be made available to local farmers and ranchers at a price that is more competitive with synthetic fertilizers -- which will also allow for the implementation of carbon farming at a broad scale across the region. • In addition to being a good centralized location within the County, the old Rainbow Nursery site has ideal characteristics for a compost facility. It has good truck access via US Hwy-287 and CO Hwy-52; it has existing structures that can be repurposed for the proposed Page 5 of 6