[Music] [Music] [Music] the meeting of Atlanta County Board of Commissioners is called to order in compliance with the open public meetings Act of the state of New Jersey adequate notice of this meeting of the Atlanta County Board of Commissioners was provided in the following manner published in the Press of Atlantic City and mailed to the Hamilton cazette and has been posted on the Bolton boards and the county offices of building in Atlantic City the Stillwater building in Northfield and the county clerk's office of ma Landing um Madam chair U before we do the prayer I would like to ask for a moment of silence in recognition of a former mayor from Hamilton Township Line Bice uh she passed away this week um I had the honor of shadowing uh mayor granice and then Deputy Mayor Joe Nichols uh when I was in eighth grade for Youth and government day and that's uh those are the two people who inspired me to want to get to get into government service because uh if you knew line and Joe uh they both had quite amount of hoah yes and uh passion and picked up on a lot of and uh they she she really did a lot uh for our community so if we could just take a moment of silence in in her memory have a moment we have pray dear Lord I pray that you guide us always satisfy the needs that need to be met during this meeting and strengthen us to make wise decisions for the betterment of our Atlantic County Community amen we all States of America the for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and for have roll call Bas here patino here FNS here Cory da here Shadow here Parker present grizzley here K here okay uh Commissioners have had an opportunity to review the minutes from February 6 2024 and entertain a motion to adopt the February 6 2024 minutes as presented move second moved by commissioner It Burns Burns commissioner Burns seconded by commissioner G any commissioner comments okay I'll a motion we call Alice yes rotino yes Burns yes corsy da G yes Parker yes grizzley yes turn yes motion carries okay uh anyone attending in person who would like to speak regarding on an agenda item or at public comments please come to the podium speak into the microphone state your name in the town where you reside you will be provided up to 3 minutes to speak if you're attending virtually and would like to speak please raise your hand during the agenda item or at public comment at the end I will call upon your name and a request to unmute will be sent please state your name and the town you reside you'll be provided up to 3 minutes to speak okay and that brings us to Atlanta County Utilities Authority we have an update for Matthew Deno president and I want to take a minute to thank Matt for being with us again as we look forward to an update as a followup to your last presentation with us and that is always it's a pleasure to have you here this afternoon and before you start I just want to say I have two questions that throughout I don't know if you have answers within your presentation and you however you want to handle the questions I just want to tell you to like right up front so we've all had you know on the board we've had uh calls from the residents that liveing around the ACA landfill and a lot of it about the smell um when can you tell them that the will decease and the second question is does the ACA have plans to increase the landfill capacity from its current permitted level so that's up to you if it's within your presentation F if you want yeah so uh the first question I first off thank you for having me tonight I'm starting to get comfortable with uh coming doing presentations especially at this board so uh always good to be here uh even under the certain circumstances uh the first question absolutely will be kind of um addressed thoroughly in this presentation uh the second question as far as Capac I'd like to address at the end if that's okay so I can kind of get through some of this stuff first and then um again explain what our plans are for the future I know the board here has gotten an update on that but um but I know some of the um members of the public have not so um so I want to start our presentation and I I remember the last time I was here I handed out paper packets and there was also a question for or a request for next time I'm here to have some slides so the information that's in your package is also up here on slides so anybody that's here um behind me or also virtually can and see what you guys are seeing as well as information so and I believe you also gave them to the clerk so she can give them to us as well we have them great okay um so the first thing is I always like to try to go through a little bit of a background I kind of did this in absin on January 11th when we went through um our public um open house there I guess if you will uh just to kind of explain what we're dealing with when it comes to solid waste and the site there at Atlanta County uh right off of um Delila road so it's a 365 Acre Site uh consists of Cycling Center transfer station compost site uh and a landfill um the landfill is 102 Acres as permitted right now um we've been accepting waste in this landfill since 1992 so for you know over 30 years we've been accepting waste in this landfill so everybody's trash that goes out the end of the driveway magically disappears has been coming to this site uh at least since since since 1992 before that time Atlantic County had 42 open online landfills throughout the entire countyy just just in this County 42 landfills um with the um you know the good intentions and the foresight from from this commission board and the state of New Jersey it was decided that um Atlantic County Utilities Authority would be created to take care of the waste in Atlantic County and that was done in every county in the state and that was actually a direct order from uh the governor I believe uh back in the early 80s to regionalize that because there was so much contamination we all know prices pit and we know a lot of other landfills in New Jersey New Jersey unfortunately was the armpit of the you know the us because we had so much trash coming in here uh in the late uh or sorry late 7s early 80s again there was a lot of contamination a lot of unline landfills a lot of corruption and trash and that's when the state kind of stepped in and said hey this is a social service that needs to be taken care of um by the U government entities and that's when this kind of went into place or started to kind of go into place U so that's when uh again Atlantic County utilties Authority was put in place for handling all the waste in Atlantic County it's called waste flow uh waste flow flow is not unique to Atlantic County actually 14 of the 21 counties in New Jersey have some form of waste flow and everyone uh south of pretty much Trenton have waste flow except for Canyon County uh it supports the system that we have that we're able to enjoy not just the trash that disappears at the end of our driveway but the yard waste the um househ hazardous waste all the programs that we've kind of put in place it's a system so think about as a comprehensive solid waste system uh that was put in place and waste flow supports that um again the landfill opened in 1992 the trash is placed over 102 Acres it's over 100 ft deep in most areas that's that's how high we go uh we go up to Elevation 145 um and our bottom base is around 30 so 110 ft of trash has been buried at this site for over 30 years so again put that in perspective because it's we hide it very well in the back of our site you drive by you don't realize there's a landfill there uh there's only one little spot in a county where you can actually see the landfill uh that's on m road as you come over the bridge or the little overpass there by the bay you see a little glimpse of it and then it disappears uh that's done by Design um so 30 plus years of trash it's no secret that as trash breaks down we've all left our trash out uh or forgotten to take it out in the summertime had a pretty smelly trash can in a week as the trash breaks down it does create gas creates landfill gas that's a fact that's not a secret um and that's been happening for 30 years um what the gas is made of is is mainly uh methane so about 50% of it is methane that's the usual stuff we turn that into electricity we're looking at actually cleaning up and putting in the pipeline um and then the other one that is becomes the issue is the hydrogen sulfide the smaller percentage of it but that gives you that eggy smell it gives you that smell that that is offputting and I noticed a lot of the Commissioners that are here were also at the Atlantic County uh V municipalities on Friday night anybody that took the Parkway in and we're getting ready to get off Exit 30 to get to the C CB trap smelled that eggy smell was not the landfill every smell in Atlanta County right now is the landfill that was the Bay that was pacon Creek low tide it's the same type of hydrogen sulfide that you're getting from the Bay has a little bit of a different smell to it tiny bit but again still has that rotten eggy smell um but that's what we're kind of dealing with at this point um how do you collect the gases is really the biggest thing so best management practices four landfills are what they call a gas collection control system a gccs plan that's done by third party engineers and that plan is based off of a a landfill gas curve so there's models that these Engineers have I'm an engineer myself I'm not special specialized in landfill gas curves specialize in a lot of other stuff especially when it comes to operating the landfill but we hire a third party consultant to do that work for us and it what it shows is what's the production of gas how much gas and it's a yearly thing so you see it over the course of about 40 years uh landfill gas if we close today does not stop being produced for 30 plus years so I know that's one of the big things well just close it just close it you know just cap it and close it you need to control the landfill gas before you can C and close anything Pinelands park off of Ocean Heights Avenue closed in August of 1990 33 years ago if you've ever played golf there you still see there's a little Lighthouse it's actually a flare we're still collecting gas from there 33 years later so again what we've been putting in for 30 years 32 years at our site is going to continue to produce gas for 30 plus years from today we stop the first slide that I wanted to kind of bring up um is the health faes I know that's one of the biggest concerns that residents have I've been in close contact with uh mayor Capa uh um council president Nicola ratanda mayor Ward is actually on our uh h2a board as well as mayor fromer so I've been Conant contacted them so again trying to keep especially the municipalities that are close to our site uh in constant contact and updates so the first sheet here is New Jersey Department of Health uh fact sheet it's on the website and what this is is showing the health concern there was an article that was out last week that quoted mayor Capa um unfortunately it was a misquote and it said the odors are unhealthy and it should have said oh I'm sorry it said the odors are not healthy it should have said the odors are not unhealthy um we went back through the recording again after speaking to to mayor pulled before then uh fortunately we were able to get the press to correct that but the article is already somewhat printed and and published so 4 days later they made the correction but again a very you know two little word two little letters in that in that correction made a big difference in in how people would read that article uh and this is the information that he was basing it off of so when you're looking at OSHA standards and that's in your packet you see that again we're getting really concerned about meth or sorry hydrogen sulfide which is the one you're smelling you're talking about 20 parts per million our fence line requirement which is regulation every day we take downwind at 6:00 a.m. has to be under 30 parts per billion so that's a scale of over 600 times greater before we are n concerns at our fence line so 20 parts per million in ppb is 0.03 parts per million so our fence line requirement has to be 0.03 parts per million and the New Jersey Health fact sheet concern is at 20 again 92 is 600 just a quick question how high is the fence it's it's a chain of fence it's not a how high is the fence a 6ft fence and the pile is 100 ft High correct so wouldn't that theit past that fence line you're taking so hydrogen sulfide is actually heavier than the air so it actually comes down so so that chemical is coming to to the ground it's coming down 6t or 8T whatever your fence is and going out it's not the wind's not blowing it from 100 ft High correct across correct and and you got to think too we're not we're not always landfilling at the highest point and again this is so so commissioner B this is a DP regulation this isn't our our decision to say Hey you know check the fence line let's that's where we're going to measure this is if we don't measure this at the fence line we're not in compliance so again if you have a concern about how the engineering works on landfill and where they decide to do that wasn't really our call it's really the the termination of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and that's part of that regulation um so again thinking that the gas is coming directly from the top is not really accurate because we're constantly filling and lifts up so right now we're not at elevation 145 filling our waste we're probably at elevation 75 right now uh and before that we were at about elevation 60 so where we're filling is almost ground level with where the fence is so yes is gas coming from the top absolutely but a lot of the spots where you have active or fresh waste that maybe 6 months a year old is actually much lower than that plateau of 145 um again it goes back to the regulation this isn't something that we decided this is Engineers have put this into modeling risk assessments and what actually how how um winds impact the landfill um so again not really our decision on where we test it we have to follow the right regation and I'll make a distinction too because there's a big distinction between regulation um compliance and detection to they don't align two totally separate things and I'll kind of explain that in a second like I said I wasn't blaming anybody I was just answering a common sense question M yeah M just the with the you know commissioner B is speaking to obviously to Wi this up here and you're sampling down here you know how do you know what's happening higher up so I think that's a common sense question that he alluded to and there's nothing you to do cuz you have to comply with the regulation which says have it at the ground at the fence line at that elevation so to make an assessment tell somebody off site that the spell is this you really don't know what the spell numbers technically might be at that time it happens to be your samp and lower but it could be higher going and there's nothing you can do about I'm following you right but there's a difference between a point source and 2 ACR Source a point source that's very very valid think of a um a pipe right think of a pipe in the ocean and it's leaking oil you can go to that point whether it's 10 ft deep 100 ft deep 75 ft deep you can go to that point and that's where it's emitting now think of an area across the entire ocean floor 102 Acres it's a little different right so yes absolutely when you have a flare or you have something that's smoked that's coming from a single point think of these are uh the BL England plant right you used to drive into Ocean City and see that Smoke Stack it's a point source we're not talking about a point source we're talking about2 Acres source of landfill gas so that's why the fence line is more applicable than saying that hey you're just going to miss that because it's coming off the top of the landfill we're not flaring it off the top of the landfill if we and and even when you flare that that's not the the source of the over the OD is the uncaptured gas and also you probably have multiple locations it's not like you're capturing from you know monitoring y you're beating me to my presentation you're beating me to my presentation yeah we're trying to keep question so actually that's that's the next slide that that kind of pops up is I talked about a gas collection control system a gccs plan it's based off of a third party model engineer um plan that shows what the production of gas is going to be now that production of gas is based off of year after year not week month day after day it's it's over the course of of many years this is our most upto-date gas collection plan I think the date on it is like um January or March it's it's pretty up to date um we just had it done by again a third party engineer that's helping us with this it looks a little bit like spaghetti on a map um and that's because there's a lot of coverage to give you a sense uh our gas collection system has grown in 2003 was the first part of our gas collection system that we installed it was 19 Wells three blowers and one Candlestick flare today we have an enclosed flare a Candlestick flare five blowers hydrogen sulfide cleanup system over 115 landfill gas collection Wells and miles of pipeline across our site that is the evolution and how we continue to evolve with our site as it continues to to evolve and except trash uh in Atlanta County the biggest and most impactful part of this is on the next slide which is our vertical Wells so you know there's there's many of um you know people that come through our door with snake oils with misers and and cover materials and all these different things and and we try to entertain all of them but we're part of a group of other operators and we try to V some of the stuff out but there's a there's there's really one key and and biggest bang through your buck in a gas collection system and this right here it's a landfill gas well it's a vertical well very similar to a guest um excuse me a water well over 115 of these are installed on our landfill and they draw vacum on the entire 102 acre property again we're not talking about a point source we're talking about a span of 100 2 Acres so this being one of the the biggest and most important Tools in a gas collection system this is done every single year and when we give updates to some of the community they kind of go you said that last year you said that last year yes we did say that last year because we invest you know 300400 $500,000 every year in these Wells because this is really what captures it there are some restrictions with this and restrictions in when we can put them in and how close you can put them so everybody says well just put more wells in so you have about a 100 ft diameter circle radius think of a sprinkler system right you don't want the sprinklers to overlap too much of the other ones because then your grass gets real wet and muddy and you don't want the there to be a gap between your sprinklers cuz then you get some brown grass this operates the same way I'm trying to make it very simplistic but it operates the same way if you put these Wells too close together they start fighting each other they're not collecting the gas if you put them too far apart guess what you have gaps so that g gas collection system that was on the slide before has these rings that they use and that's a best management practice across the country across the state in landfill and and developing these these Wells um one of the challenges so I'm going to kind of go through some challenges now so that's the history of of how these landfill sites are developed and how you collect gas um but one of the challenges we face with these is if you look at that closely there's a couple dimensions on there the first 26 ft of a landfill well does absolutely nothing zero absolutely nothing and that is because the bottom has to be at least 10 ft from the bottom of the liner cuz you don't this is a big drill rig going into the the trash into the fresh waste and then putting a perforated pipe in with stone and then you put a cap on it to make sure that the gas isn't bent out you don't want to get too close to the bottom of a liner system that's protecting our groundwater uh with a giant augur right so we always keep it at least 10 ft from the bottom of that liner so we don't have any concern of actually puncturing through the top 15 ft of a landfill vertical well is solid pipe doesn't collect an ounce of gas and the reason it's solid is because you can't pull too much oxygen into a landfill oxygen and landfills fires and fire inside a landfill takes years to put out there's there's there's hundreds of landfill fires all over this country where they're internal and they just continue to burn because you can't get them out so you're really balancing that oxygen so 25 ft plus a one foot on the bottom so we drill a little bit more and then we pull the pipe up about a foot so 26 ft does absolutely nothing we put our trash in at 10 to 15t lifts at a time you can't put it in any more than that cuz then it's not stable so you're you're you're building a lift you're putting dirt on top of it you're building a lift you're trying to get to a level that you can start installing these before the trash starts to break down remember that hot summer day remember that one week you forgot to put your trash out how quickly that can happen sometimes especially when it's hot winter time you don't see the maggots summertime you do right and that's because of the temperatures so the first 26 fet we usually try to get to about 65 ft of trash before we can put wells in that that's kind of like the sweet spot for us at least as far as efficiency so if our waste isn't high enough and it starts to break down and cook we're not collecting that gas so that's one of our challenges I mentioned weather um predicting when that gas is going to break down and how much it's going to actually produce is dependent on the weather we had a very very wet fall and winter I me I feel like every two weeks we've had these like 2in rain events that really have been saturating trash causes the breakdown faster um so the temperature and the weather and and the amount of moisture we get controls that how the gas is going to produce throughout the year so we have our gas curve that kind of gives us our long range PL but we don't have something that really can model you know um week by week or mon by month so that's really where you're at the mercy of is it going to be a wet spring is it going to be a wet fall is going to be a dry fall is going to be a hot summer going to be a hot fall that's really where you're really trying to balance it um some of the other things that we're dealing with on on the The Challenge side that you really don't have control over is um the you know I mentioned this before but the development that's being um developed off the westcot road there uh 650 homes less than 1500 ft from our landfill um just on the other side of the parkway they cleared about 110 acres of trees so similar to the the 55 Motor community that is also about 1,000 ft500 ft from our fence line that was a zoning change it was light industrial when we when we build our landfill when when the County Commissioners decided that's going to be the site it's going to be at and then 15 years later Market was hot you know 2003 2004 Market was hot they built the change of zoning in abin and now there 125 homes there it's a challenge it's it's not it's no surprise that landfills have some kind of odor waste treatment plants have odor Pig forms have I keep saying those are my fa things but we all love to make our trash disappear we all love to flush the toilet and and and make sure that everything goes down the drain and we all love bacon and pork when it comes to breakfast and and and Easter right so these are the Necessities that we have to have but again some of the things out of our control that 110 acres coincides with a lot of some of this odor getting a lot further than we had originally had seen it it's a wind tone you know it you know yes it comes up the landfill it comes down I mean it is blowing right through there and heading up to Smithville never seen that so again this is something we can't control um we are you know working on again the additional gas but again some of these challenges that we're faced with that we either have control over that happen on a daily basis or weekly or monthly or yearly basis they're constantly evolving I was talking to um commissioner previous chairman fik about it and he's like s's constantly evolving I said yeah that's 100% you know what we're doing today may not work 2 years from now or may not work or or what we did two years ago may not work today so we're the site is almost like a construction site constantly evolving um and then the last thing on the challenge side so I'm going to get to my timeline next I know I want to make sure I'm explaining everything now um is I mentioned compliance first detection so our fence line commissioner Ballance is at 30 parts per billion does that mean you can't smell it if we're below 30 parts per billion absolutely not absolutely not the human nose can detect hydrogen sulfide at 0.5 most people some people some people have more sensitive noses some people don't have a sensitive nose so 0.5 is where the human can detect hydrogen sulfide and our regulatory limit is 30 so when I was speaking at absin I said stop worrying about what the meter says stop worrying about if we're in compliance or not we are in compliance but that's not resolving your issue your issue is a smell and that's unique to everybody in this room that we're going to try to address but I don't want people to get so hung up on what's the meter say can you put a meter here you're not going to see anything you know mayor Capa and and and um Galloway was talking about with I think their OEM or their Public Works using their meter it was a confined space meter not not going to to to pick up the uh detail and the sensitivity that you're going to need and you're not going to see anything that far out again but it doesn't it doesn't invalidate you smelling something just means we're in compliance so now going through our timeline what's happened where we're going and and what Improvement we've seen and where we can kind of continue to see some stuff is um the the landfill is under what's called an nsps regulation so it requires a quarterly surface emissions monitoring report and there's actually a report in your uh packets of forward for it that's the one thing that's not on the slide uh but I think the next slide does have the mapping oh that's the um the compliance part of it sorry I skipped the slide there so again we talked about compliance versus odor this is our history for the Year this line up here is where we're our our regulatory 30 parts per billion this is where we've been does that mean nobody smelled it no no it just means we've been in compliance right two different things compliance versus detection two different things we're trying to solve the detection problem we don't have a compliance issue the next slide what we looking at is the surface emissions so the sem report this is done on a poorly basis Again by a third party engineer not Engineers uh on site as far as you know a2a staff this is done and that path looks very very busy it's 479 points along with another 179 I think is in the slide uh of penetrations so this is what they do and they monitor on a quarterly basis that goes to the EPA and goes to the DP um this is the report the one you have in your packet and the summary oh there it is 469 and 179 we had four exceedances out of I don't know 700 points that's that's pretty good and that's that's that's monitoring for methane methane is odorless but methane is the most part you know the highest P portion of a landfill gas makeup it's also one of the most impactful greenhouse gases that's why they're kind of monitoring it um but again out of over 700 data points we had four and then what we have to do is we have to address those within 10 days so and this was the last the quarter 4 of 2023 was done October 26 so from all accounts in October we were in really good shape we had landfill gas Wells scheduled to be installed the end of November that that work started in July we put a bid out for 15 vertical G gas Wells remember vertical gas Wells are your key to collecting landfill gas started in July contract went into place in October contractor started to mobilize they got on site December first second week of December from December till about the first week of January that's where we really started to see a high production of landfill gas we didn't have the wells in yet we saw a peak right around that week of Christmas and New Year's and that was the worst week we probably could have had um and timing wise you know it's cold it's everything's kind of lying uh low um but we didn't have those wells in the wells started to go in December 14th in that time as they're installing Wells we also had a drone survey done where they're actually able to run a path similar to that and look at the surface for hydrogen sulfide this is methane they're looking for hydrogen sulfide based off the existing operation and existing conditions we saw like four or five spots that we wanted to address right away the contractor on site since they were mobilized we added another four Wells on top of that so we had 19 Wells going in from December 14th until just about um January 11th which was the meeting we had with Aban so I think at that time we had just about every wellon except for one once they go in they start to get connected during that time frame think about this we're drilling holes in the landfill in active trash and trash has been there for 6 years and trash has been there for a year um as we're putting pipes in we're creating these vents so everybody's like you're putting wells in it's getting worse what's happening it's because that's part of the process until you get that thing connected you start to actually experience more gas so over the course of those four to 6 weeks we got 19 wells in um we've gotten them all connected and we've gotten them uh tuned so they have to actually they they install them and then they put a well head on them and they have to tune them they're checking them for oxygen checking them for methane they're checking them for hydron sulfide these have been continue to be tuned on a weekly uh twice a week basis uh we saw an increase in gas collection of over 32% so not to bore with numbers but we were collecting about 1,900 scfm we're now collecting about 2500 scfm that's a significant Improvement in gas collection is it elimination absolutely not we're not here to say that we've eliminated it and then I've seeken when I was there on the 11th they said when's going to be the Improvement I said you'll see Improvement in weeks you will not see elimination right so I want to be very clear about that um so again now we're at January 11th uh we have our gas wells in we see an increase in the amount of gas we're doing and we're still experiencing some of these spikes so we have monitors across our entire landfill we're able to kind of model things and see stuff on an instantaneous bases and we're still seeing these we're seeing a stretch in like gas collection but then we're seeing these spikes that are kind of going up over down they're not they're not you know associated with nighttime they're not associated with daytime they're kind of all over the place they're not quiling they're kind of like really driving us n and I'm staring at this data we're all staring at this stuff and about a week and a half ago our third party operator was looking at his says it kind of looks like a pump and and one of our um managers of the system also said it kind of looks like a pump so what we theorized was it was our landfill cell pump stations that were drying out their sump so in each one of these landfill cells there's a like a straw that goes down and pumps out the Lee a lee8 can't go into the ground gets pumped out sent to our treatment plant and treat it think of a trap in your bathroom has that little slug of water to keep the gas from coming back these were pumping down because part of our regulation is we can't have more than a foot of liquid on top of our liner so we are pumping these things down and creating that Gap and almost like burping that gas out so on a Tuesday we shut those pumps off to test it out for a week straight we didn't see a single Peak go up we saw one Peak go up and we attributed to one of our operators actually had run into a piece of a land landfill gas well and put a hole in it they capped it up so that again that's an operational thing that happens 115 WS across 102 acres and you're trying to move a a giant d8 or a compact or it can be difficult um so we've started to kind of normalize that too we're still not out of the woods you we're still getting a couple uh over complaints here in there but they're not very they're not very specific to a certain time um we got one last week whereas the week before we may have gotten 10 so we're seeing a trend in the right direction again prev it we're not seeing elimination right we're still working on it today the latest the latest update in our phasing for what we're doing um is extending our header so all these pipes are connected to the 115 Wells they go back to a header back to our flare station and our blowers that's where the vacuum is pulled and the main header going up that's designed based off of the gas curve is an 18in header and it goes up to the top of the landfill we're extending that all the way around the entire landfill cuz the bigger pipe we have one it's going to help us in the future to collect more gas as we continue to move around the landfill but two it's also going to create more efficiencies so that pipe showed up today is 18in um hdp pipe actually it's on the next slide or I may have skipped through cuz I just keep talking that's our increase in landfill gas so you can see right around December that's in your your um your packet there you see the jump up that's the 4500 scfm that we're collecting now that we weren't collecting and we didn't have these Wells and we were in really bad shape and we had some odors that were getting off site that's the impact right there that's the data data doesn't lie uh the next site is the pipe that showed up today was a a nice morning to come into and see two tractor trailers Lo loaded with this stuff cuz this stuff took about 2 and 1/2 months to get cuz 18in diameter hdp pipe is very difficult to get uh our third party contractor was able to track it down and get it here that delayed a little bit but it showed up today and they're going to start installing that pipe so that's kind of where we're at right now and the last thing that I'm going to um just go through is we're not done there again we've seen a lot of improvement but we're not done there we're going to kind of continue uh to build out this with more pipelines we're putting collection on um our sumps we have dewatering wells installed so we think about all the rain we get as the as the landfill fills with water those pipes get clogged up with water we have to pump them out we're putting more or putting new style de watering wells in there and the two really big things that I that I try to kind of um note on that are that are complete Game Changers one is a 16 acre permanent cap of the section that is closest to the Aban area comes around the side we finished filling in there we're going to cap 16 Acres of that that's really going to help we have the gas collection now if we didn't have the gas collection we'd have a giant balloon so now we have the gas collection in those areas and we filled up to what our permit is right now we're going to cap 16 Acres of that that's going to go the bid probably early summer so it's underd designed right now the second Big Game Changer is renewable natural gas we broke ground and um commissioner rizley was there to see with partnership and South Industries renewable natural gas so we're going to take all this gas we're collecting instead of sending up to a flare converting to CO2 we're going to clean it up even further and put it into a pipeline it's the only project we've ever had that we've been able to say we're going to reduce on-site emissions by up to 95% so there's no longer going to be there's going to be a flare there is a backup but there's no longer going to be a burning of any gas on the site never been able to say that it's going to be a significant Improvement to the site it's also helping us with a lot of the infrastructure we're doing right now can I just ask a quick gas question okay just I I don't I don't think I caught it when you were talking about the the guest well thing um so that's what we do with the Gest we burn it we don't give it to like South Jersey Gas like I know that's a dumb question but I don't know so so what we South Jersey gas used to be in partnership with us and they'd run a they'd run generators we had up to three generators there we were producing 5.4 megaw of electricity at one point um it was powering our park and then they were selling it um the the cost to maintain those generators cuz the gas isn't all clean methane there's other small constituents there's hydrogen sulfide in there there's there's other again parts of that that make it very difficult for those engines to run clean so over time as a rebuilding that's costing them a lot it start to become you know economically not feasible so when RNG we've been pushing RNG for 5 years now so so today we collect the gas in this in those well things you convert it to CO2 and then you burn it that's okay just want to be clear on what yeah and we're under construction right now to take that gas and give it to SJ y it's just just has to be cleaned up okay but that's that's a standard practice practice for any landfill gu so even when we had the generators we still had to have a flare there cuz it's a backup you ever go to um you know Phil Philadelphia International and you see the flares that are you know off of um as you're starting to approach the scoop there it almost looks like the woods are on fire that's a Tre that's a treatment plant they have digestors and there's nothing that's being built there and they have to convert it to something so so Matt I I know um that um uh council president uh Nica runda had a town hall me meeting I attended it virtually it was a long meeting very very intense but um you you know it's very much appreciate it I know you've made a commitment to them to stay in touch and meet with them periodically to give these type of updates I just felt it was important because we are getting you know quite a bit from our constituents so we want to also have a you know a feeling of what's going on and we're going to keep it within our solid ways uh oversight committee which now I'm going to defer to the chairman of that committee for any questions he may have which is Mr jimo so the one question I didn't answer yet was capacity and let me know when you're ready for that cuz if you want to do it before the presentation that's fine too but I didn't hear the answer to the first question so when of residents going to stop smelling time frame to say to say that they're ever going to stop we're we're certainly in a much we're in a much um smaller I guess area right now so closer residents are going to still continue to smell it and we may have a hiccup here there where it gets a little bit further we're trying to draw that radius back in so when I had uh mentioned to um council president La Randa that in a couple weeks we'll see some improvement we did but we didn't see the elimination I think over the next four weeks we're going to see another you know big milestone where we're going to see we've already seen those those complaints go down again we didn't see them eliminate but we saw them go down significantly um there are certain people you know in the county that are starting to pot a little bit you know there's some there's some you know um uh legal action that's been threatened by the community that's next to us there's all sorts of things that are kind of happening too that we're aware of that they want this issue to kind of continue on so we're trying to really validate and devalidate which ones are real which ones are not so to give you an idea uh two set two Fridays ago we got about 16 odor complaints um in the course of about 2 hours and now came from Port Republic came a lot from Gallaway uh Smithville all all over all over the place you know more of like the northwest and like I said we track everything we have models we have all these sensors we're looking at it and going the wind is 5 meters per second out of the North opposite direction our meters aren't really good this doesn't make any sense and what we found was somebody in the county had mentioned about odor and on a Facebook page we we all love social media now right um posted a link to the ACA site and said the ACA file a complaint here and we're seeing that in Brigantine we're seeing that in Galloway we're seeing that so we're again not just missing or invalidating what their concerns are cuz there are there's people in N Navajo Avenue that have called us and we go yeah we know I just had a call from uh someone in Pleasantville who's on uh Newark Avenue I got to call her call her back after I get off here we call everybody back within a couple hours because we know those people that are close to our site are still experiencing the landfill but again we're trying to get a good gauge on where we're at because we have seen Improvement so I would say in the next four weeks you're going to see another again big hump of uh Improvement to our site and and bring that radius even further in uh the couple issues we had again I have a call that I to um to call somebody back after this meeting was the other night and she called and I looked at and I said yeah there was there was an issue there we found there was a little change in vacuum that we had on our system and the minute we increased it it went away I it cause an effect doesn't take that away but I can at least talk to her and explain thaty this is what happened not say hey we're just not able to get that gas so again we're trying to be as proactive as possible our our website I've been directing a lot of the Mayors and Council to our website we have a very robust site on updating what's happening at at at the landfill daily weekly updates if we need to actually just got an email about two hours before I came to this meeting from a a former U college friend of mine who works for Mammoth County so Mammoth County was a landfill run by the county it's now run by Waste Management having significant odor issues and they said man I went to your website and it is awesome can can I pick your brain a little bit on what you guys are doing and how you're how you're managing it I'm like yeah sure sure finally somebody's looking for some for some uh some tips on stuff so um so commissioner G and commission uh commissioner U chairwoman uh Kar I'd say about four to four to six weeks you're going to see a significant Improvement the one other thing that's really been helping us to is the sun sun came out we hadn't seen the sun in I don't know a couple months it seemed like and that holds a lot of these ceilings down creates inversion and it runs up you know um you know abon Creek and and the reservoir and that becomes a challenge too so um I'm going to go to uh our vice chair fortina thank you thank you Matt just a couple of quick questions for you I'm looking at your gccs design plan and I see the man I and you know you know me I talk to you about manifold system when I look at Collections and all that I use that analogy because it's easier for people to understand when you're laying all the PIP yeah absolutely as I look through a few of these you have the existing uh areas where it is most these things are proposed uh they're not installed yet like you have stuff that are proposed for phase one phase 2 phase three phase 4 in the future so at the present time in those areas where you're not collecting any guess gas is there a possibility that you have seepage or leakage or whether it's vertical or horizontal because as you know we can go either direction right so so it's a little it's a little misconceiving because there is gas collection in all those areas the difference is you have remote connections and then you have permanent and you put remote connections in so you have a header that's a little bit fur further away and you're you're running a longer smaller line to those those well heads and there there it's a network of pipes all over and I mentioned one of the operators hit one of those pipes the other day and it's because as we're bringing waste up we can't put any permanent pipes in cuz we keep bringing the elevation and the landscape is changing so what these phases are are actually permanent installations after it reaches yep so we're collecting on the but we'll be able to run a bigger pipe on the outside we'll be able to drain you know in the winter time you get issues with condensation clogging lines so there's a much more efficient way once you're at capacity in some of those areas to bring in these bigger pipes that kind of come around so that's the difference there is they're all connected it just if they're connected yep absolutely um I guess from the other question I guess just touch on what you just said I thought most of the elevations are you were already at Peak along that landfill do you have more areas where you could add material up or aren't you maxed out already and most of the landfill except for the new cells that you're working on along the sides so you know that was one comment that kind of came up not seing was the mountain keeps getting higher and higher and it's like now the mountain hasn't gotten any higher since probably 94 95 you know so our elevation cap is at 195 and I don't know if you can bring up like the one slide that looked like the had the L with all the pipes and stuff on it um that that's perfect that one's perfect um nope the one before um so it's almost like a triangle and it's got a ridge on it it's not like a flat box it's got a ridge on it so that Ridge is where where our Max um elevation is so what we're what we're feeling right now is the outside slope of everything that is kind of comes around so um most of the area that we're in yeah we're we're kind of at the highest we've been at the highest point but as far as like looking over the 2 Acres we're almost we're pretty much all those spots at the highest um and we're just kind of filling these side soaps that's what that mechanically stabilize Earth wall that we just bit out um third phase that takes advantage of a side slope so the angle comes in here the wall goes up here and I call it the cheese wedge takes takes a linear cheese wedge all the way around the outside of landfill so not really putting anything on top putting it on the sides and that's why I was kind of making that point that like just because we're at 145 at some spots doesn't mean that's where the gas is only coming from or not coming from we're feeling a lot of these side slopes which is a much lower profile um than just thinking it's come off the top yeah you know I think um appreciate you coming in you and I have had discussions when I call you on the telephone um as the process and I knew you that's why we talked about the the chair chairwoman current said let's get him in to discuss this so everybody can hear it because we all are getting the phone calls and I think what you're what you're saying is obviously is what it is there is going to still be some smells nobody can tell you it's not going to smell it's in the permissible areas so it's not a health issue but we can't sit there and tell somebody you're not going to smell anything coming at a lfi it's going to get better but it's never going to be able to say at this point in time that it will stop until you put in the permanent infrastructure to try to capture a little bit if that's the case am I put uh just just a little bit so you shouldn't smell it every day you shouldn't smell it once a week you know it should be a rare occurrence and a very localized occurrence to Snug landfill you know 1,000 ft from the landfill again it's you know when you look at gas curbs you're only collecting 85% or 80% you're never going to collect 100% because that oxygen concern um so I don't want to say that you're always going to smell the landfill you shouldn't you shouldn't smell it every day when you're on site you drive drive around it you're going to smell it right but um what we were experiencing December is is not something you should experience and that's that's what I'm I'm working on and that's the expectation that I'm hoping that everybody has is okay let's bring that that ring of influence in and get it really localize and and the hiccups that we may have where somebody hits a pipe or we're installing new wells and we we notify everybody so we're trying to create like a tech system too where we can notify and say hey we're drilling we're doing some kind of activity or we had an issue with a condensate pump that filled in or or failed and the flare went down and we couldn't collect gas for 6 hours you may experience landfill we can pinpoint it that's that's responsible for in my mind that's what we should be doing that's the community engagement that's the communication that we should be pushing out and that's the issues that we should be resolving um so that's what we're kind of getting to um you know in the next several weeks and and months just just I can chair just a quick add-on question to that so you said people shouldn't smell it regularly what's the difference day versus night though because of uncapping at night so there's no such thing as uncapping at night I've heard that now three times today I don't know where that came from so there's no cap at night time the work that you doing right but there's uh so there's no change in work that we're doing from daytime to night time so originally I felt that too I'm like okay can we can we look at our monitors and try to say like is there a correlation to nighttime you know cuz we do get a lot of OD complaints at night time and and I think the correlation at night time really is not the activity that's happening in the landfill but think about when you go out at night time typically it's very still there's not a lot of wind unless you have one of these big wind events so now what's happening to any gas that's not being collected is it just kind of permeating and staying down it's also cold at night so that gas that's normally being able to evaporate is staying low and kind of traveling far uh at night time we're bringing our MSW trash out at night um that is not creating odor that's not you know that's not breaking down and creating hydrogen sulfide and cre methane it takes weeks and months for that to happen during the day we're taking our c and d and bulky waste up so we're still compacting waste we're still covering waste like there's still an operation there um and when we talk about caps it's more of a temporary permanent thing that's there for months and years and not like a um a daily thing so we do have like a but but commissioner got so one of the things that may have been confusing you and and other people too is that there is a system where you can put a temporary tarp for daily cover over top of the landfill um there's really a lot of challenges with that you know one is when you're putting dirt in a soil cap it's a much better uh seal um but think about you know the other night we had a really windy day and I was worried about my trash canes that were out in the field that were going to kind of blow around imagine 11:00 at night these guys that are on top trying to manage a tarp you know and and balasing it down and finding things it's going to be a giant sail so so it's a really difficult operation that we just try to avoid a little bit but um but so I think that's where maybe some of the confusion was coming but there's no like uncapping uh or recapping uh at night time you between night and day operations I think what we're talking about is the material the dirt you put on top so many you put what 16 in or 12 it's got to be a 6 in interm metor cover and a 12 in um on top for every night you close that at night time so it's covered we Al we alter to daily cover so it doesn't always have to be soil up it be bulky waste it be um I think that was part compost material yeah with the birds when we originally when you originally did the land you had to have it cover because of the birds yeah so an hour before Sun up we have to have it covered because the concern of the birds and the approxim to the airport we just had another bird meeting we fly somebody in from uh Canada we have FAA USDA and njd meet with our onsite bir biologists that we have there 7 days a week um and in all accounts actually they shut down the number of meetings we have so we were doing four a year we're doing three a year now because things have been going so well not just our site but offsite as well first of all I want to thank you for responding to any constitu concern that have sent you away I youve gone you know as far as I'm concerned maybe above and beyond to continue to do back and forth them um but I think some of the concern is that and correct me if I'm wrong but so you're saying some of the reasons the smell has gotten worse because you're trying to address some of the concerns so does it get worse in the future by by drilling the wells and is that why all a sudden is it worse than it's ever been um not of the complaints I have they are at ni so I'm glad that some of the The Collection volume and times are different up there evening and morning but I those Su mornings that come out at 5:30 6:00 in Smithville and it's like wow what is that and I've never smelled that before so you know December or just fairly recently so I guess what they're trying to I guess grasp is why is it worse now yeah yeah no and every wants to have a very like simple they want a simple problem and a simple solution and there there really isn't but what I'll say to to simplify as much as possible it was a m Target and what I mean by that is we had Wells that were planning to go in we started in July to develop those for the end of November we had a wet fall trash started to break down quicker the the the works are already there but you're about 6 weeks behind now in getting those Wells installed again because we have to have a certain height so you're you're trying to plan that months in advance and sometimes it's a it's a 4 to 6 week process where all a sudden you're like they should been in 4 weeks ago you know the contractor got delayed a couple weeks so that's in my mind really the the biggest part of not capturing that gas the second part is how it's getting so far especially like Smithville those trees I mean those trees were providing a huge buffer for us you know and it's just sweeping across that area right across the Parkway right up to you know uh font's Landing or Smithville or up in the Galloway like it is it's a real thing you know um but I think um commissioner Dave really it's it's a matter of we were about 6 weeks off on that and that becomes you know a tough 6 weeks especially when you have those temperatures like if it was a summertime it probably wouldn't have been as bad or exasperated but because it was the winter time cold low ceilings inversion F I mean I don't know how many foggy days we had in a row but I just wanted to see the sun you know at some point but that just really kind of holds it down to the surface and lets it run and we're we're right by the reservoir where wear a lot of low-lying areas because it is heavier than air and it starts to kind of run runs up the parkway runs up um the reservoir and and I've see Creek area so I just want to so since the the meeting in in in Oban um the new Deering Wells that was that discussed then I just trying to clarify where we're at yeah so the so from that meeting uh we had installed the wells they are um they've been tuned and they've been all connected too so installing the well isn't necessarily mean it's collecting gas you have to get the remote pipe lines and everything there so they've all been done and now we're in the second phase of that which is that 18-in header that came in today the Dearing Wells are probably a April Endeavor um that's the that's the Le that was being pumped where you would see those the the changes is that so uh no no I'm sorry so we're going to manage those pumps a little bit differently those are going to go in we're going to collect um on those pipes probably in the next couple weeks once we get this header and we're able to actually get collection and back into them so that'll happen sooner than there Wells what the do watering Wells do is those 115 Wells as it rains the landfill collects water and they start to fill in with water so those holes get covered with water and then we're not able to collect as much gas or as efficient so what those do watering Wells are going to do is they they're like submersible pumps just like you have in your house if you well and they pump that water out and keep that collection as you know as efficient as as high production as possible so that'll be a probably an early spring um once they get this 18in header I just wanted to again clarify you know for the public why you said in the next four to six weeks we should see even greater Improvement so than thank you for that yeah and and like I said if anybody will I appreciate your your compliment on the responding to to constituents um I I've done that for anybody that I can and I direct them to our site again because I understand that you know you guys are sitting up there and and don't have the information and the same thing and have seeken where they don't have the information and I don't want anybody to get the wrong information you know so L directing him to us we'll manage it we we've reached out to every single person they don't all answer the phone actually was at somebody's house 2 weeks ago in Galloway um that called and said hey I smelled this morning I hopped my car drove out and I got to I got to see this it's not making sense called her she was at work um and and it wasn't that morning it was a couple days prior and for some reason she decided there was a Facebook post that had a link she decided to to call then so it was like okay but we're but again we're responsive we're you know making sure people have the information okay yeah so I just have a I guess a couple questions and couple comments so um I don't know whether you consider it a question or not but I think you know that 100 acres of trees coming down I mean trees are they naturally take carbon dioxide out of out of the air and clean it you know and I think that's what was happening a lot you know from where you're where you're located to where the trees were taken down and it seems as though it's I don't think it's a coincidence that once the trees came down that that smell started you know um being a lot worse I don't think it's the wind blowing you know through open land now and and blowing that smell out of AUA because I mean I go to AUA a lot and doesn't smell bad when you're on your property but if you go to Fire Road which is you know could be half mile away away from your property that's where you get the smell you know um just like you know if you know when we were talking about the fence and and how high it is and you know you're you're saying that you know this chemical is is heavy and comes down to the ground well think of any Beach Community sand is heavy sand is heavier in air right M I would say right yeah but if you go three blocks or four blocks from the where the sand is you're going to find that sand on the on the windows on you know in their screens at at their property because the you know the wind blows and it takes it up over the houses and it carries it for for blocks you know so that's the same thing I I would think that's happening there that that smell or chemical or what whatever that is that sulfide is is making its way out because the wind's going to blow and it's going to it's going to carry it um yeah absolutely you're in compliance with you know what D tells you to do and you know you take your reading here would it be any worse of a mile away probably not but just smells worse so give so give you a sense of that we actually did that just just test that theory out so West C Road gets a um a significant amount of odor you got a lot of prevailing South Southwest winds and that's that's why you don't smell it on our site in the front because the prevailing wind is actually going the other direction um and we were looking at our meters and we saw it wasn't a a spike it just curious is like again like what does that dilution look like you know dilution of concentration on the landfill versus at the fence line versus um westcot Road right where the overpass is just past where they did the clearing um and it was down to I think it was like a 1.5 or 2.2 ppb so when we were looking at a fence line monitor of um not a fence sorry of a um a meter on our site we were like a 50 or 60 again where this is right on the landfill right on the site how does that look further down we know our fence line is fine we know that's below 30 but what does it look like further out and it does it's just it it's it's diluting at that it's dissipating it's dissipating yep so so those trees definitely are pushing it but you got to think too is the wind that's coming across um you're not going to smell on that side you're going to smell in the other direction as that's kind of coming through and the same thing too you're kind of creating a a free Avenue for that wind to come across on the other side too and get f out that's you know absolutely okay so so question being this landfill started 30 some years ago um that's when the liner was put down Y and everything was started is there any way or is there any monitoring that you do that you're for sure for sure that that liner has not been penetrated and nothing is going into the ground yeah so so just as a a cautionary that area is contaminated there there's no well water in that area crisis pit one is the big contamination in fville we're actually on price bit three and before we put that sight there we had to clean it up more before we were able to put a sight there um there's groundwater monitoring there's um gas migration monitoring that's done on a regular basis on that site to monitor the plumes that were there already and make sure there's no additional concentrations that we have there uh there's also again the requirements to keep that liquid off the liner um but you're really able to monitor those plumes and that's how you you monitor you know any contamination the airport has a ton of contamination from all the Foams and stuff they use in the firefighting um that's how they monitor it they they they put these wells in downg gradient and that's how they're doing price pit right now they're looking at a dow gradient and they're they're checking for concentration so that's done on a regular basis um and then when they actually put the landf sell in so we don't decide what the liner looks like what the material is that's a regulation that says hey we've done all this testing to make sure it's going to last the test of time but when they put that liner in we have to hire a third so we have two Consultants we have a third party QA consultant which is a quality insurance they work for the DP that oversees the third party quality control um inspector that does destructive testing does all sorts of stuff and then they put a copper line in the bottom of that thing and it looks like it looks like something out of a Star Trek movie but they come across and they make sure there's not a single pinhole in that entire liner they have headphones on they walk the the sand layers it's it's a really kind of bizarre thing to see um but they do a leak detection on that as well um the liner is also made up of of a primary and secondary so the primary has in between the primary and secondary is what's called a bent night mat and it's a bent night clay if it gets wet it swells up so if something was to penetrate it it would swell up and seal that that hole there's a secondary layer does the exact same thing so there's all these precautions that they have just in case there is a penetration um and then there's also a monitoring system that allows us to make sure that we're not contaminating any further uh the groundw and that's really been you know I I rag on New Jersey d a lot for the amount of Regulation that we have in New Jersey um I say they race in you know California who can regulate the most but that is one of the good things that did come out of it you know we don't have the stories of prices pit where they're dumping millions of gallons of toxic waste and unlit um so that's really been an improvement to everybody here in this room and what we can enjoy and not worry about contamination drinking water you know we're all worried about cancer but again we can at least eliminate landfills as is one of the causes of it so I mean that's just a question I've gotten a lot you know is is what you're putting in there making it down to the ground water andan you're not far away from you know the reservoir which is the reservoir for Atlantic City's B right you know yeah yeah there's there's a ton of monitoring and again that's people want to put landfills in like simplistic terms I just take my stuff to a dump and Buri it in a hole it's a lot more complex than that um there's a lot of again uh fail safe and foolproof stuff that we have to do a lot of inspection when the goes in it is a very highly regulated thing for our benefit um and again is one of those things that that has been helpful for uh New Jersey residents any other commissioner okay we're let you proceed on the capacity all right capacity I'll try to be quick because I've been taking a lot of time and this was supposed to be a short meeting so um so so cap so capacity uh I I presented to this board uh back in November when we did our budget um hearing I also presented the swack and ail and I presented uh this information to every single one of the municipalities from the Monday after Thanksgiving all the way until about the second week of December uh so every municipality has heard this speech um but I'm going to make sure that that it's here on the record as far as the information we have our landfill has a 5-year capacity as currently permitted January 2029 we have a annual Topo our annual report that's done every single year by a third party engineer we just awarded that contract at our last um meeting uh arm group has it this time French and per had it the year before they'll do their Topo and they'll give us our calculation it could change it could be December 2028 it could be May of 2029 it's pretty close so we anticipated about 5 years of capacity we're we're we're instituting a three-prong approach and this is what I kind of went through with you guys back in November the first one is what I call a rip cord if I sit back put my feet up I probably won't have a job but if I do that and do absolutely nothing we continue to fill this landfill as we are right now and January 2029 comes and we've done nothing we'll do it what we did when this site was originally permitted and this is a story from my predecessor but our site was not designed to handle the waste of Atlanta County when it was first permitted it was a interlocal agreement with merer County they were building an incinerator and we were building a transfer station that's why we actually have a transfer station on site if you have a landfill on site why would you have a transfer station doesn't make any sense our transfer station was built in the early 90s we were going to transfer all of our was in Atlantic County send it to merer County and in return we were going to get merer County's vegetative waste and we were going to back haul the ash that's the landfill was going to originally be used for Ash and then it was open as a CND landfill merer County never built that incin was actually at that site about 3 weeks ago they have a waste digestion site there it's called Trenton biog gas um so from the course of 1992 to 1998 we dispos of our CND D waste in our landfill and we couldn't do our household garbage because of the proximity to the airport we were concerned about the airport so from 1992 to 1998 we transferred all of our waste over to gr landfill and Pa that was because that's how that site was designed the intersection was realigned Dy Road anybody that's been with the county knows that Dy Road was completely realigned dual you know dual Lanes there was four lanes on D Road there because of that facility roots for where the trucks are going to going to go where they can't go and coming in and having the ability to queue you know 30 trucks tractor trailers up to that scale and not be sticking out we still stick out in some of these so so on a Monday at 11:00 when everybody's you know for a holiday weekend or whatever it may be you'll see that traffic can be backed up pretty close there 26 27 cars or tractor trailers backed up from that scale if you've ever been to our facility the scale is pretty far down so the site was designed to be a transfer station so our rip cord if we do nothing is transfer it out and we bid this out twice we opened it up to any private hauler that could transfer the waste out we did it twice uh the second time we kind of learned from um some feedback from the the haulers we opened bids the first week of July was actually my first week on the job by myself we opened these bids and we got some really good bids hesport transport uh which is out of Burlington County uh waste management and Republic three biggest waste haulers in the area uh pricing was really good the low bid was actually Waste Management they were going to send the waste to uh Delaware cost effective the challenge was we have 5 years left to capacity so we were only going to transfer about 500 tons a day as opposed to, 1500 so the nighttime landfill operation the transfer station the heavy iron the maintenance the people the gas the diesel all that stuff still had to be paid because whether I'm disposing 1,500 tons or a th000 I still have an operation it's not it's not you know you can't just scale it down so the operational cost wasn't going away so the cost to transfer that waste out the portion of it before we closed wasn't economical we weren't seeing the savings it was a direct expense so okay we have that put on the Shelf let's start evaluating some other things the second thing was was evaluating our site and can we optimize what we have there's not going to be another landfill built in Atlanta County there's not going to be another landfill built in New Jersey there's probably not going to be another landfill built in most of of the Northeast the Northeast is star for space DP regulation is very very difficult to get anything approved right now especially a landfill nobody wants a landfill in their backyard so can we optimize our site we're Bound by the parkway uh wetlands and uh another form of wetlands where we really don't have a lot of space we're not in Cumberland County we're not in C County where we have 80 years of capacity we have five can we look at our triangle and try to make it a little bit rounder grab a couple acres here or there to make a our MSU wall that we have now extend a little bit we're looking at that right now now and that you know on the Concept side we're looking at close to 8 years 9 years we can grab from just again rounding some of these Corners grabbing a couple that'll get us 15 years of capacity I think everybody can go okay we're breathing right um so that's that's prom number two um problem number three is our waste conversion our pie in the sky and I'm not I'm not going to sit here with rosecolor glasses on but our Pine of sky is we can't keep buing our waste in in the ground it's archaic you know it's and and nobody knows the landfills are there until you smell it right nobody knows the landfill is there until somebody's sick burying our trash in the landfill is archaic so trying to find technology and since I've been with the organization for you know 16 plus years this is what we've been chasing technology has changed significantly in August we put out an RFQ which is a request for uh um qualifications under What's called the ma and row act we vetted out several different proposals we uh shortlisted three we awarded them a short list or selected vendor in December and we're now developing what's called what's an RFP which is the second step of that process which will allow us to contract and negotiate with the vendor so am I optimistic about it sure but do I think it's going to be a home run no again we've been going through this process for 15 years I'm not again sitting here thinking that we're going to have this you know whizbang solution but it's it's it's direction that we're heading and we're seeing now some of these plant go up so there was just an article $50 million plant in Oregon was just uh Broken Ground on for exactly what we're thinking we can do with our site uh I bring up Juno which is a Georgia Pacific company that has a pilot um uh facility that's been operating for 3 or four years they're interested there's a project in K County Michigan doing the exact same thing you know and these are areas that have giant land masses you know they can ship it to Michigan can ship it to Ohio um again we've got to do better with what we're what we're you know how we're disclosing our waste so that's the third problem and there's variations in between that I mentioned Trenton biogas so if we can't take all of our waste throw it in a black box and have rainbows and sunshine come out the other end of it we're going to look at trying to pull out portions of that so Trenton biogas has been doing a really good job with taking all the food waste all the wet waste that creates a lot of this gas and pulling it out of the stream or again having sort separated stuff we have casinos that would be obligated to bring it to us putting in a digestor creating more of that natural gas that we can give to sth Jersy Industries create Revenue which will keep keep our tip fees the lowest in the state like they've been in our track record um that's a variation of again that that waste conversion so three prongs with a lot of different variations in between that work got many irons in the fire so we have a very you know comprehensive and aggressive plan to make sure that we have the ability to dispose of Atlantic County's waste in one form or another and keep it um the system that everybody has come to Love and Enjoy um because I I will say we do one thing right and that is customer service and collecting our trash we get complaints about Miss stops and you broke my can but we got a lot of we got a lot of compliments from people in every single municipality about what a great job our guys do and that speaks volumes to what our staff does we just celebrated a guy the two guys at the landfill three guys at the landfill that found somebody's doll was running up and down the access ramp in the middle of the night this isn't daytime landfill middle of the night big articulate jump they stop and pick up the dog and they TI one they call him another one uh one of our drivers in in Brigantine uh helped somebody that was a motor that broke down that's that's the AUA difference that we are constantly trying to push um and the services that we provide so again and think of the AUA as not one thing it's a comprehensive Sol BAS system I just have one question on that if I can um so I understand the multi-prong approach and I appreciate you breaking that down I don't know that any of this technology though that you're banking on is going to come that quickly okay I agree so I agree is there going to be an amendment to the solid waste plan so that if and probably when we do need to take it out of County we can I think we can't right now based on the wayte right so any change we do correct we we would have to do Amendment to the solid waste plan anything we do whether it's technology that's ready a year which that's not going to happen it's it's a 5 to seven year it's a long it's a longterm play 5 to 7e plan um do we have a bridge like we did in 92 to 98 that maybe we transfer some waste Kate M county is interested in our waste I know that's been dis dispelled as they don't want it they figured out they have 80 to 90 years left of capacity our landfill and they're not going to use that we're not going to be burying our trash in 80 years so they see as an asset that they're not going to utilize so they don't want all of our trash I'll correct that they don't want all of our trash they want to portion that they figured out what that portion is that'll offset their recycling cost and not increase their operational cost and that's the number they want um so again that's a variation of what we could do but yes absolutely it would need a solid waste Amendment plan that we would have to go to swap first and then it would come to this board for approval um for anything we do whether we're transferring something out whether we're creating a a food waste digestor or um you know something in between uh the landfill capacity expansion so you know I wouldn't be standing up here if we had 20 years of capacity of landfill right I mean that that's the really the perfect solution you know amidst the odors and and we're not going to go towards any kind of um optimization or expansion until we have this situation under control we would we would just P to even try to do something like that so but it all it all does come to you so it goes through swack and then comes to this board and then to the D okay um and I just want to continue saying we do have the solid waste um oversight committee and we're going to stay very involved in what what is going on move forward and again I know you're going to stay involved with uh the municipalities that have you know affected so much and uh so thank you thank you I hope I answer everybody's questions thoroughly there'll be more I get a little passionate about this too so so I appreciate the time and allowing me to kind of explain everything it's very much appreciated and if you guys have questions afterwards please reach out directly or you you have a constituent that has a question we're here you used to talk I need a drink watering that y'all talk to P me in the death you want to hang around anybody has any questions it will be brought up in the uh public por y sure the I'm only 15 minutes pH but good thank you Comm Coursey appreciate it okay uh that brings us into okay so going to bring us to Ordinance one ordinance amending county code chapter 97 entitled Parks concerning John F GNE Green Tree Golf Course final read second move by commissioner Cory seconded by commissioner G any other comments for the Commissioners hearing n anything from the public okay we have a roll call Patina yes FNS yes fory yes da yes G yes Parker yes rizley yes K yes no carries I bring this to our grant with resolution 59 please Grant application and acceptance from the new New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission for the State Community Partnership and family court grant funding amount not to exceed $ 64,8 36 second mooved by commissioner Cory second by commissioner G any commissioner comments see hearing none anything from the public okay roll call bertino yes Burns yes Cory da yes G yes Parker yes rley yes turn yes motion carries resolution 60 please for an application and acceptance from the the schools and libraries division of the universal service administrative company for the e- rate program amount not to exceed $177,700 move second move by commissioner Parker seconded by commissioner G any commissioner Comm see hear none anything from the public bastino Burns corsey t g Parker grizzley K yes Carri resolution 61 please Grant application and acceptance from the United States Department of Justice through the state of New Jersey Department of Law and public safety for the Edward burn Memorial Justice Grant funded amount $ 7932 County inine match $3,411 move by commissioner Cory seconded by commissioner G any your comments same he none anything from the public have a roll Alice Latino Burns Cory da G Parker grizzley F yes motion carries and to our Professional Services agreements with resolution 63 please Madam J 63 62 think about yeah that was a lot Cur an application and acceptance from the state of New Jersey Department of Education State library for the 2024 per capita state Library aid funds amount not to exceed $1 17,93 second by commissioner Parker Al Burns corsey G sh Parker yes Grizzly yes K yes motion carries that bring resolution 63 Professional Services agreement with various firms for the provision of environmental consultant Services am not to exceed $150,000 move by commissioner Cory second in by uh commissioner G any commissioner comments see hearing none anything from the public hey roll call bastina Burns Cory St SC Parker grizzley turn yes motion carries resolution 64 supplementing resolution number 701 adopted on December 19th 2023 a Professional Services agreement to add John Strawn as a vendor to provide substance abuse services for the 12-hour and 48h hour intoxicated driver Resource Center programs no additional cost move by commissioner G second by commissioner bertino any commissioner comments see hear none anything from public bastino Burns Cory g g Parker yes grizzley yes K yes motion carries resolution 65 Professional Services agreement with pharmacare Incorporated to provide pharmaceutical consultant services for meow View Nursing and Rehabilitation Center Mount nxe 30,2 $100 Mo second move by commissioner B seconded by commissioner G any commissioner thas see hearing none anything from the public we call bastino Burns Cory J G Parker grizzley yes K yes motion carries for under our competitive contract starting with resolution 66 please amending resolution number 330 adopted on June 20th 2023 a competitive contract with Center for Family Services for the operation of family success centers to refle reflect a cost of living adjustment net increase $ 39,2 second like commissioner G seconded by commissioner Parker any commissioner comments see hearing not anything from the public he have bastino Burns Cory da g clker grizzley k yes motion carries resolution 67 please amending resolution number 565 adopted on October 17 2023 competitive contract with Atlanta care behavioral health for the operation of a family Success Center to reflect a culs of living adjustment that increased $2,441 second move by commissioner gther seconded by commissioner Parker any commissioner comments see hearing none anything from the public okay we have a roll call bastino Burns corsey J G Parker rley yes K yes motion carries our big contract start with resolution 68 renewal big contract with action uniforms for the provision of uniforms for the members of the Atlanta County Justice Facility amount not to exceed $94,500 move move by commissioner B second Mo by commissioner days uh any commissioner comments see here none anything for the public okay have roll bastino Burns Cory St G Parker grizzley yes turn yes motion carries resolution 69 please renewal bid contract with action uniforms for the provision of uniforms for the Atlanta County Sheriff's Office and office of emergency management amount not to exceed $73,700 second move by commissioner gther seconded by commissioner rley any commissioner comments see hearing none anything from the public a roll call bastino Burns Cory da G Parker grizzley yes turn yes motion carries uh change order start with resolution 70 change order number two a contract with think faers hardscaping limited liability company for the resurfacing of old Tilton Road County Route 687 in Inc Harbor Township and the City of Pleasantville net increase $2,329 49 move by commissioner corsy seconded by commissioner G any commissioner Commons seeing here none anything from the public have a roll call bastino Burns Cory J G clker yes yes motion carries whoever leases with resolution 71 lease agreement with Hala Incorporated for use of facilities to conduct 48 hour intoxicated driver Resource Center programs amount not to exceed $ 32,2 move by commissioner Cory second by commissioner G any commissioner comments see hearing none anything think from the public hey call Bas yes fortino Burns fory St yes G yes Parker yes grizzley yes yes motion carries start with resolution 72 please amending resolution number 434 adopted on August 2nd 2022 a shared services agreement with the city of Margate for snow removal and street street sweeping Services net increased $1,800 move by commissioner Martinez second by commissioner G any commiss comments hear none anything from the public okay call Bas yeso Burns Cory St G Parker rzz K yes motion carries resolution 73 please amending resolution number 63 adopted on February 7th 2023 an opioid contract with Atlanta care for the bridge Hospital emergency room drug rehabilitation program to extend the term date only no additional cost second move by commissioner G seconded by commissioner days any commissioner comments seeing here none anything from the public we have a roll call Bas fortino Burns Cory da G Parker Grizzly yes turn yes she carries resolution 75 74 74 inter local agreement with the Atlanta County Improvement Authority through its consultant Triad Associates for the provision of grant writing services amount not to exceed $30,000 second move by commissioner gther seconded by commissioner rley any commissioner comments see here none anything from the public bastino Burns corsey da G Parker grizzley yes motion carries resolution 75 alternate method contract with Capital Health for the provision of various Medical Services to inmates at the Atlanta County Justice Facility now not to exceed $51,000 second move by commissioner Parker seconded by commissioner Gallow any commission comments see hear none anything from the public any have call Alice fortina yes Burns horsey Parker grizley yes turn yes motion carries resolution 76 memorandum of agreement with Jesso authorizing a formal written collective bargaining agreement incorporating the terms of the mo MOA for a 4-year period commencing January 1 2022 move second moveed by commissioner B seconded by commissioner Parker any commissioner comments see hearing none anything from the public here we have roll call bastino yes Burns Cory da yes G Parker Grizzly yes F yes motion carries resolution 77 please alter alternate method contract with Tesa HEC Tesa and white PA to provide legal services for areas of labor law m not to exceed $250,000 second move by commissioner seconded by commissioner rley any commissioner comments see hearing none anything from the public okay roll call Bas yes patino yes Burns yes Cory St G Parker rzz K yes motion carries resolution 78 agreement with various vendors for Library goods and services amount not to exceed $685,000 okay move by commissioner Parker second by commissioner C any commissioner comments see hearing none anything from the public okay well roll call Bas yes fortino yes Burns Cory b g Parker yes grizley yes turn yes motion carries resolution 79 alternate method contract with various firms to act as interim special counsel to provide legal services for certain land use matters amount not to exceed $250,000 second move by commissioner Parker secondly by commissioner rley and commissioner com thank you this for Jimmy I think this is what we talked about for the tonyl and Tony Pagano that's correct yes you just touch on it yeah uh Mr pagan handled what I refer to as land use matters but obviously it encompasses a number of different things um he was counseled for the different boards like the a board the development Review Committee um and uh other agencies uh and also represented in handled cases for the uh division of Public Health um he was U out one medical leave and uh his situation is such that Tony has decided um unfortunately for us to retire effective April 1 um and U due to the volume of the work involved and the variety of the work involved it's something that although I I can do some of it and know some of it I certainly don't know it uh don't have the skill set in that that he did and I don't have anybody in the office right now who's uh capable of doing this work and we have to go out for it it's important work we have a lot of projects that the County's involved in uh things uh varied as much as the the lake leny project to other U uh projects that are on the on the drawing board here in the county and so we need a competent Council to handle this um due to the nature of it uh when I thought uh Tony was going to be able to come back from his medical leave uh we thought that we would get be able to get by for the the few months that he was expected to be out now that he's not coming back um we did not have time to go out and do a typical uh request for proposal process um I approached various firms Tony in fact made arrangements to have the development Review Committee covered by uh lady Shirley Grasso who's from the hamton area I know Jim you commissioner vertino probably know knows her very well she's very confident she's filled in in two meetings already and the people out there who handle that really like her like what she's done uh the other firm we uh two other firms we reached out to the nead Davis and Goldstein firm from a Harbor Township uh they do a significant amount of land use work of various types and they're prepared to step in to represent like the a board uh and some of the other uh boards uh that U you know Tony used to to cover and then we also have uh uh Joel fleschman uh who's an attorney local attorney from Lynnwood uh anything that would involve um potential bonding and things like that uh Joel specializes in that and does a lot of transactional work so the idea would be to uh uh split the work up uh the the the nead Davis firm would do uh the the construction uh Board of appeal the Atlantic County Agricultural Development board and the Atlantic County division of Public Health uh surely will cover primary the planning Advisory board and the development Review Committee and then Joel fman would fill in uh where necessary very very competent attorneys all and uh we will be able to keep things on track and keep uh projects and things moving so um that's our that's my recommendation to you the board uh that this resolution should be approved so I can reach out have meetings with these folks and and um get them working as soon as possible thank you Mr thank you m yeah just a follow question Jim um with these two resolutions like $500,000 um is there going to be a reduction in staff in um your office or this is just well on top of uh last year at this time myself included I had eight attorneys in the office uh with myself we're down now to six attorneys um that's a big gap I mean uh the labor work that the tester firm will be doing people think that labor all that involves is is going to and conducting negotiations there's a lot more involved in that there's the negotiation process there's the drafting of the contracts there's handling of grievances that that are brought up uh the labor attorney has traditionally done the disciplinary matters when we discipline employees um and you know takes a takes a lot of time I've been handling that but doing that and trying to run the office and everything it's it's just just too much uh and uh I had a couple good people as you know for years we had Jennifer star who came before this board of numerous Cas she was terrific she left about almost 2 years ago now um fell about the name of Joe Moore was was hired I was doing a great job for the nine months he was with the county but then went to the prosecutor's office we did look to see if we could hire somebody to bring in house I was even contemplating um hiring somebody uh who might be fairly new out of law school or early in their careers and bringing them in and training them um but uh as some of you know I have plans to retire at some point this year I was hoping it would be June 30th uh the executive has asked me to stay on and I'm not going to leave him high and dry so I will stay on for a while but um I don't intend to be here a year from now so um you know uh we needed to get somebody to do this work because there simply wasn't time for me to bring somebody in new and train them um so that's where we are and the bottom line is we really can't attract with what we pay an attorney for a good labor attorney um commissioner who you know really knows their stuff you'd probably be looking at a minimum of $125,000 plus the benefit package on top of that I mean that's that's just what the market and that might even be light I mean that's just what the market is yeah it's and again the followup on on Mr G it's cheaper than 250 125 I think well yeah but I mean I hear you G and I hear we can't find a going all over the place you can't find the jys right this area whether they out of Law School in the practi you can't find them our minimum is 100 we can't get them I know you're absolutely right absolutely right so that's where we are in fact most of yall think y practic attorneys up anyway y might be including me sometimes so again I I you know all of that is for your consideration I uh you know hope that you'll you'll approve the resolution thank you thank you Mr any other comments from the Commissioners anything from the public okay we'll have a roll call Palace fortino Burns Cory da G clker yes rizley yes yes car resolution 80 please appointment of bassan K to to the Atlantic County cultural and Heritage Advisory board for a term to expire on July 31st 2027 move second move by commissioner Ball seconded by commissioner rley um I I just want to say that as always you I I would like to express um my thanks to Mr G for his service to our County for the the role he plays in both the Atlanta County cultural and health Heritage Advisory Board and also as a philanthropic and Community leader our county is to benefit from his many talents and passions uh any other uh commission comments I look forward to working with committee great man very committ okay well um we have a call alas fortino Burns Cory da G yes Parker yes grizley yes K yes motion carried resolution 81 resolution supporting the Hamilton Township Board of Education pursuit of funds for rehabilitation of the duerson school property sponsors amyl G and John W rley Jr second moov by commissioner G second by commissioner rley any commissioner comments yeah Madam chair um just to note I previewed this in new business last meeting um I think many of us were contacted by uh School Board member from Hamilton Township Harry Rogers uh very passionately seeking f uh grant funding and such um from various uh state and federal um opportunities uh but um I think he was faced with both from the state and federal level um if if any of those legislators were going to help with seeking that uh just wanted a kind of vote of support from the h from Hamilton Township and from the county um that this is a worthy project for them to purs to um Hamilton Town voted on it last meeting so they they approved it obviously the school board approved it and um as I mentioned we Grant to also approve it it's not a commitment of funds or anything like that from us it's just saying yes go out and find any other commission comments thanks s here none anything from the public he have a roll call bastino Burns Cory da yes yes Parker yes grizzley yes K yes motion carries brings us to resolution 82 resolution urging New Jersey Coastal Coalition communities to use new alert system sponsor AML G second move by commission G seconded by commissioner days any comments from our commissioners yeah Madam chair this is just a followup from the presentation we had from the gentlemen from the New Jersey Coastal Coalition um I basically put the materials they presented and um put it into a resolution any other commissioner comments see hearing none anything from the public hey Rob call alas yes fortino Burns Cory yes B yes G yes Parker yes grizzley yes F yes motion carries that brings us to one of our most important resolutions of the evening resolution 83 please resolution honoring Diana upon her retirement move by commissioner Cory second by commissioner G any commissioner comments if I may I have not been here as long as R probably not as old carpet around here but Diana heard him for I want everybody to hear you but I've heard nothing but good things about you so when you found out you were retired I called over in ter and said listen we need to make sure put something on the agenda recognizing her years of service to the county of Atlanta um the interesting part about it is is that um on my short few years here uh I've got to know you um but the funny part about it is when I first met you saw me and her going to be rumbling she got a little smart mouth like I do but come to find out your heart certainly been in into uh the work of the county and the residence ofon County and I don't think your work should go unnoticed uh I don't know if you were trying to slip out the door um but nobody recogniz realized that you were really going to leave um but on the other half I get to to deal a lot with your husband um a lot of municipalities get the opportunity uh to deal with their husband on a number of projects and I mentioned to him the other day cuz I didn't know if he told you we were attempting to do anything I said well as your wife probably her last meeting we going to probably be surprised he act like he knew nothing about it so that was a good thing so we didn't have to worry about him telling you right um but on a serious note thank you so much for your service uh I don't know what you plan on doing in retirement but I will tell you this your husband said you cannot and you will not be working with him don't tell him I told you that but I be be divorced but he said you going to be on the beach spending a lot of time Etc but I wish you well in retirement thank you so much for all you've done for the residents of Atlanta County we hope that you one of the ones who still a phone call away congratulations every time thank you any other commissioner comments yes I'd certainly like to Echo everything that of course she has said about Diana and I concur 100% um we're losing a lot of good people in the county because of retirements and other things along the way and Diana's been a um a big resource and I'm I'm sure you're going to be only a phone call away with anyone has a question in the administration that you can help with um I go back a few years with Diana to the days when U she was Diane mlan and she was uh attending the U budget meetings we had uh inperson budget meetings in those days and uh Diana was a trooper she came even though she was uh sometimes very very pregnant and still attended all those meetings and um I've gotten into Diana over the years and I I know that it's very smart very smart and very thorough and um we're losing another good person in the county and I just wish you well do thank you any other commissioner comments okay seeing hearing none uh anything from the public okay we're going to have a roll call we read that for the record yes resolution honoring Diana rutal on her retirement whereas Diana rutala earned a bachelor's degree in political science with highest honors and program distinction from Richard Stockton College and was an intern with the county of Atlantic and whereas while working for the late Congressman Bill Hughes in Washington DC Diana rutal accepted full-time position with the county of Atlantic in 1985 and began her esteemed career in the department of AD Administration and whereas Diana rutala ascended the county ranks as she garnered experience working in various departments including Administration Regional planning and economic development administrative services and the division of budgeting purchasing and whereas in 2005 Diana rutala was appointed as deputed County Administrator and has been an exceptional leader and tremendous asset to the county always working to to accomplish projects as efficiently and productively as possible and whereas Diana rala has been an invaluable member of the Atlanta County Executive team as a highly competent and devoted employee for almost 40 years and whereas in 2006 Diana rutala was inducted into the prestigious Atlanta County Women's Hall of Fame for her work in government and public service and whereas committed to giving back to her community Diana rutala served on the United Way Financial allocation committee and the lywood Board of Education and whereas th though Diana rutala will conclude her official duties on March 1st 2024 as Deputy County Administrator her contributions to Atlanta County will forever remain now therefore be it resolved by the Atlanta County Board of County Commissioners on this 20th day of February 2024 that this board does hereby honor Diana rutal for her many years of dedicated service to Atlanta County and be it further resolved that this board does hereby extend its very best wishes in retirement to Diana her husband Jim and their two sons Matthew and Sean thank [Applause] you have aoll Alice yes Martino Burns horsey da yes G yes Parker yes grizley yes K yes motion Carriage we would love to get a picture of you of course we have a plaque for you over here um I'm going to answer would be good to just line up in front of us what's the best for come down look at when you've always done your job quietly and effectively when you retire it takes 45 minutes to read all you wasn't expecting this so thank you very much and she's right I got it didn't seem like 30 it was 38 years I was in so many different places in the count kind of always felt like I was somewhere else now I've been here a long time in this position thank you get I'm I'm G to make the suspense you didn't even put the secret that she acts super mean but is actually super sweet you get we're to come down here you you tell us what's best right here [Applause] everybody okay that concludes our written portion of the agenda uh we've received copies of written Communications and petitions any commiss comments and anything they may have proceed mam chair r b yes so again I was contacted by members of the e CC volunteer fire departments requesting um information on when the emergency flash beacons will be installed um I can only tell them as much as I know and I'm hoping that dog can maybe um update us tonight um that they're still back ordered and still trying to get them um that this project is long very long i' I've been asking you about it for almost two years now um I just I'm hoping that I get we get good news tonight from Doug if he could speak Doug are you on yeah I'm here uh from what I understand most of the equipment's in and it looks like will be starting either the end of March or early April um they have 28 of these around the uh County so I don't know what order they're planning on doing them in but um you know I get a schedule on that I can share thank you Doug great to have a time frame great thank you if uh you want to oil the squeaky wheel give me a call and I'll let you know which one it is with our written Communications mam chair actually I'll okay uh anybody else with any written Communications or correspondents okay uh any reports of special committees mam chair commissioner Parker I know there were several of us that attended the ACCC um round breaking of their new baseball field so I to congratulate them on that project and you know hopefully it will bring not only success to the college and this County but also to everyone of the student athletes who participates in the sport there at the college thank you I also while I have the con if you don't mind Madam chair um I'd like to report from the environment Parks committee as well we had Hamilton Township uh come to our last meeting to speak about the bike path West project it seems to be very positive energy coming from uh that meeting from most of the people who attend it and Hamilton Township is preparing and prepared to do their portion of that project um and move forward I know it was back and forth on whether it's going to happen or not but it seems like that's a a project that is going to to happen Hamilton Township is moving forward and everyone was very happy to hear that just you know to throw out there there will likely become a time where it's going to come back to us and we'll have to complete a portion of our end of the projects let's get our minds and our hearts and our pocketbooks ready to do our part of that project I know the state has kicked in and they found money to the state so everyone seeming to come on board for this project to happen it seems like it's going to be a good thing for him the township for the county of very thank you commissioner any other Commissioners you pointed first I you to commissioner I heard you mention the ground breaking at ACCC I got a call on my way here there's no team this year I have not received that call so you know more than I do on my way in had no idea I just get a new coach yes new Co with no team that would be strange but I don't I would definitely be looking into that let us know M there um I would like us and I've inquired to the college to get a list of all the folks that donated major there was a lot of legal firms engineering firms uh and other wealthy folks around the county that made major contributions to this project and you know let us not forget this is our community college you know this is our community college and um we do a lot of good things there and we spend money and we educate kids and we prepare them and of course they also have the the 3+1 program which is certainly a bargain which means that in many cases a student can take this third year of college at our community college at the community college rat so that's a tremendous savings so a lot of good things going on there so but i' would certainly like to to thank all the folks that made this possible a great project than any other uh reports commission thank you m chair just briefly uh the Atlanta County Board of Agriculture recently had their annual meeting uh they had yearly uh they had it in hamon on site it uh was an opportunity for the uh members of the D to come down and explained to the farmers in the a community the new regulations and permitting process for Wells a lot of the guys as you know used Wells for agriculture some of them use it for production act where they're doing a producing their their produce that they can prepare and ship and there's been some big changes on that that uh they went over at the dinner and and the farmers had a good opportunity uh it was fun at times uh to contact and discuss with the D the ramifications of some of that um and um I think we're going to be hearing a little bit more about it um and as I've told a lot of the farmers out there uh what was done in the past uh as far as the state of New Jersey and well permitting is going to be radically different here in the future since we all realize water is probably the biggest commodity that we're concerned about and um Farmers even though they've taken uh the opportunity for changes in technology and you see you don't see irrigation sprinklers overhead stuff that they've done years everything is trickle they've used water a lot less uh because of the whole process uh they had an opportunity to at least have that dialogue with the guys directly who've been coming to the Farms prior to so would rather well expect one meetings along along those lines and keep the lines of communication open report thank you commission any other reports from our commission okay um that brings us to unfinished business any do I have any unfinished business any to discuss see none any new business and may would like to discuss see none uh now brings us to the public comment anyone attending in person that would like to speak now at public Comon please come to the podium speak into the microphone stay your name and the town you reside if you're attending virtually and would like to make a public comment please raise your hand I'll call upon your name and a request to unmute you will be sent please state your name and the town you reside you'll be provided up to 3 minutes to speak and this allows us to have as many people that now would like to speak possible so if anybody any public comments M we don't have any public comments I'm sorry sir yes yes yeah you can come up to the mic and just state your name and municip impairment not pain tapping blind just very distorted vision and a lot of eye pain uh you can pull that down uh Conan karski uh I'm a resident abse yo uh exactly 2 miles uh from the center of the ACA landfill as the crow flies or as the gas molecule travels that Ernest uh my brother Joseph uh would like to say hello and uh he spoke very well he's enjoying his retirement uh he's got a grandchild grandson yeah uh I can't see everyone's name Moren you said that you watch the town hall at do you recall my presentation did okay I spoke for about 20 25 uh minutes uh the town erupted uh to give me more than uh five um Matt certainly uh remembers me uh I mean he might felt he took it on the chin but I'm going to tell you I pulled every punch because I am sincere about us working together to solve this problem and I do not want to be adversaries uh so and I really appreciate um your discussions about the gas collection and control system both at our meeting and here um just so everybody knows I have uh a a bachelor's and master's degrees in environmental science uh I've worked with several Federal uh Land Management agencies Department of Interior Department of Agriculture other State uh Environmental Protection programs I've been disabled for a while from this um I think that at the meeting in the town hall I hope I accomplished a couple things I hope you understand how awful the landfill odor or air pollution problem is um and that our residents are Beyond fed up but um I also hope uh we got a a a commitment from you to work with us to respond to our questions you know uh in writing and the thing I want to ask you is I'm not hearing that in your presentations this acknowledgement of how bad the problem is now I haven't written at the acua site uh Tony yeah I just have to you have to address your questions as way this way okay yeah I haven't written to the site but just for instance uh January 7th uh February 18th uh for 8 to 14 hours we had the landfill megga fart event I'm vomiting in my home my 90-year-old neighbor and my new neighbors good children are calling me cry and she's putting vay on her arms and her you know neck to stop the smell uh I can I I can't uh you know sleep or function in my home I Ste outside you could cut it with a knife you know I said it could gagam mag it and it can um so when I hear Matt I talk about the gas collection and control system which is absolutely vital to any landfill it seems to me that that system is working as in tended you should be congratulated for that I know how difficult your job is but there's a component of the landfill odor that you've never addressed and it's the main component and I don't know why you're not addressing it may perhaps because of the you know um pending litigation you could expose yourself to Legal Jeopardy if you acknowledge the problem everybody who experiences this I'm 2 mil from it I know people 5 miles from the you could set your watch by the odors it's like The Sparrows returning from Capistrano it starts around 7 or 8:00 p.m. in the evening and sometimes doesn't end until the early morning hours even be on 6:00 p.m. when they put the cover cap on now we know what's happening at the landfill at that time there are two uh shifts the first shift takes the uh garbage from the transfer station carts it up to the hill spreads it and it's not until you compacts it and it's not until maybe 4:00 a.m. that they start putting the cover on uh once that cover is applied uh the odors dissipate so and then we never smell the odor during the hours of place say 9 uh a.m. to 7:00 p.m. which means the gas control and collection system is working perfectly the source of the odors that is driving everybody insane doesn't they don't know if they want to slip their throats or sell their homes but they can't live with it anymore it's it's m is your daily nightly operations they taking so much garbage that's been stored there for so long during the day transporting it spreading it over such a large area it's a short period of time letting it Fester out there you guys that is the source of the odors that we're smelling like I said you could set your watch by and the biggest problem is we can't get uh I can't call somebody at 12:00 a.m. or 1:00 p.m. at night I mean in the morning uh we can't get inspectors here I have to remind you you have to oh I'm sorry yeah we can't get inspectors you know out uh to the site uh independent environmental consults or even the D with the kind of gas chromatography or other gas analyzers that would be needed but the problem is we don't even need that data we know that this is doing irreparable harm and that it is interfering with our ability to enjoy and use our properties and enjoy our lives we were anticipating the closure of that landfill and now we hearing that it's going to be open till maybe mid to 2029 or 15 years more the gas control and collection system is a miracle it's it's I'm I it's working because we're not smelling it during the day uh everybody who drives past everybody knows that the problem is occurring at night when you're spreading the garbage and I honestly don't know if there's a solution to that problem short of closing uh the thing because it's inherent in your operations and that's the thing that nobody ever wants to acknowledge or admit that is the source of the odor so that's I just wanted to bring that up cuz we're going to have to investigate this longer and perhaps um I if people on the council here haven't heard my presentation at the uh Town Hall I can send you a a a transcript copy of it or or you could have me back uh sometime to get the kind of presentation that's given and or we can go you know Q&A but I would um act you know I would send it to our vice chair he heads that as I mentioned a couple times he is heading that committee there's a number of our other Commissioners that are on that committee but if it goes right to commissioner Vero you he'll take it take okay I this is not a new problem this is an ongoing problem going on for decades so since they built that burm um and since I guess within the last year the duration the frequency and the intensity of it have increased dramatically um and so and this is why we're here right that's why we're here so this is just the start of trying to figure out what's really going on and uh come up with some uh solutions that allows everybody to EMB breathe enjoy their homes and their lives uh and you know and you've got a great person in your council president right there with Mr L wundo and he's staying on this with Matt and they they're going to stay in constant contact with us as well right us upd so great thank you so much for being here this evening thank you there anybody else from the public can I just make two comments on I know I stayed because of a comment period so U Mr Cary I appreciate where up um so he he was at the meeting and it was a bit of an adversarial start but I appreciated at the end it was a a mutual respect for each other that we were there that we were trying to work through some things couple things I just want to want to correct and and we did look at some of the stuff so I if there is a correlation at night time I would I would love to be able to to to pinpoint that we haven't been able to do that cuz we have seen some stuff during the day and at night time again not saying that it doesn't happen more night because of what we talked about with with temperatures and also with you know the breeze and the wind um the transfer station and moving waste out at nighttime we've done testing inside the transfer station so if the the waste that we're taking out at night time is a source of the odor then the waste then the odor would be in the transfer station as well we did readings in the in the um transfer station just because this was a um a written comment that we got in through environmental justice here process that we had to respond to so we did some readings over the course of a week and got zero um one of the biggest things is and you're an environmental science major so you'll appreciate this is landfill gas is created under an anob process not an aerobic process you don't it's the the lack of air that creates the gas that starts to create the hydrogen sulfide so that's why you're not seeing these big large volumes of landfill gas when we put fresh waste in at night time cuz we're putting fresh waste in during the day as well we're compacting it we're putting cover material on it we're still it's just a different type of waste but the the the big source of odor really comes from the breakdown of that waste and the gas collection system because it's an Anor robic process not an aerobic process again one needs Air One does not the landfill production of landfill gas isn't non um you don't you can't have air present to create that gas so I just want to kind of create that but I want to get your contact before we go because we were supposed to kind of connect afterwards and we never got a chance to so I your name down give you at least six weeks appreciate that you know effort on both our parts thank you and and it is and thank you very much Tony for that comment and you know it does look like we're trying to work together and at least to have the information that we need it seems to change as you're going along with some of the things that you're doing and that's why they need the updates we need the updat so we can communicate well and so we appreciate you know everything that you're doing uh anybody else uh from the public anybody from uh no okay I'll entertain a motion to adourn the order oh the order they have anything for the good of the order M chair I just want to put something in the air since we're talking about the air so much I may go nowhere but I've had a couple conversations and I'll be three I think we may um it may be in our best interest to consider having commissioner mobile devices the reason I say that is because I've been speaking with quite a few of course I'll speak to our councel but um in terms of doing commissioner business on our cell phones and things and in terms of you know people opening at a much higher rate nowadays it just may make better sense if we have commissioner cell phones so all of that emails text messages cell phones all the communication goes to a commissioner phone and not a personal phone which could be for that any time thank just a thought I second that because uh and Frank would tested this from Shar Department once your phone to subp it they got your phone no matter what's in it that's right you don't when you going to get your phone back that's right if you doing County Business that's something take and and I'm talking just answering an email whatever you get on your your mobile phone if they choose if they choose to they choose to take phone Dian we push that through before I think we used to have those but well for those who want it anybody might not want it but it doesn't matter they your phone they got you did you say they used to have them over time we did um but some preferred using the some preferred using their room all right so we will look into that as well our what we can do um okay I'll entertain a motion to adjourn if there's nothing else for the good okay we're nowed thank you everyone for coming [Music] [Music] in [Music]