Enforcement team catching up after inspector departure, county says

Chuck Harmon, Grama manager for Solid Waste Enforcement at Clark County Public Health, told the Solid Waste Advisory Commission on May 1 that the enforcement team has been rebuilding inspection capacity since an inspector left last September.

"For a long time, we had an inspector, Melissa Sutton, who had been here doing it for a very long time... she left, to go elsewhere, last fall in September," Harmon said. He described a period in which staff Hannah Pludow and Jamie Searcy were reassigned and trained to cover enforcement responsibilities; inspections lagged during the transition but are "catching back up." "We are catching back up and we are getting everything done," he said.

Harmon said both Hannah Pludow and Jamie Searcy are pursuing MOLO certification (the training required to inspect landfills) by working with certified personnel from the Washington State Department of Ecology. He told commissioners the program has not seen many major issues in recent inspections and credited prior inspection work and contractor management for stable compliance outcomes.

Harmon said he had submitted a draft report to county staff and that the enforcement group will provide a reformatted report if requested. He asked commissioners to direct any follow-up questions to him or enforcement staff present at the meeting.

The enforcement update did not include specific counts of facilities inspected, outstanding violations, or deadlines for completion of the backlog; Harmon said some numbers were not immediately available but that inspections resumed and the team intends to finish outstanding work this quarter.