Title
Adopt City Council Resolution Approving Expenditures of the Joint City/County Caspar Transfer Station Rent Account to Fund a Financial and Environmental Analysis for Potential Coastal Transfer Station Sites
Summary
City of Fort Bragg (City) and County of Mendocino (County) jointly own 60 acres in the Caspar area at the end of Prairie Way that was operated as a landfill from 1968 to 1992 and since then has operated as a Solid Waste Transfer Station. The County operated the Solid Waste Transfer Station until it executed the Operating Agreement and Lease with Solid Waste of Willits, Inc. on January 25, 2011. In January 2011, the City and County executed a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) to provide for changes in how the Caspar Solid Waste Transfer Station would operate and to consider the replacement or expansion of the Transfer Station in order to accommodate commercial collection trucks and allow for long-haul direct transfer to a destination land fill.
The JPA was amended on October 25, 2016 in order to outline specific terms and obligations for moving forward with a replacement of the Caspar Transfer Station and the County Board of Supervisors and the City Council certified the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on the new Transfer Station project for 30075 Highway 20 on September 19, 2016. On November 18, 2020, the Caspar Transfer Station Joint Coordinating Committee directed County staff to hire Tom Varga, retired City of Fort Bragg Public Works Director, to act as Project Manager and focus on moving the Central Coast Transfer Station project forward. Mr. Varga and the Caspar Transfer Station Coordinating Committee recommend hiring HDR Inc., the City and County's Solid Waste Consultant, to complete a preliminary financial and environmental analysis of two proposed sites for a Central Coast Transfer Station.
One site on Highway 20 is near or the same as the proposed site approved in the 2016 EIR. The original Highway 20 site involved a multi-party land swap. The State of California would transfer 17 acres (30075 Highway 20) to the City/County in exchange for 35 acres of land at the Caspar Landfill site. California Department of Parks & Recreation (DPR) would take ownership of the 35-acre Caspar property in exchange for 12.6 acres of Russian Gulch State Park, which would be transferred to Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF). Not too long after the EIR was certified, DPR pulled out of the proposed land swap and little progress has been made since on the Coastal Transfer. The second site is the 219 Pudding Creek Facility currently owned and operated by Waste Management.
Funds exceeding $250,000, resulting from a $3 per ton fee collected at the Caspar Transfer Station have accumulated for the purpose of funding costs associated with developing a Central Coast Transfer Station and are available to reimburse the costs of the HDR Inc. analysis, which is estimated at $26,915.