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Parametrix begins multi-year siting study for North County recycling and transfer station
Summary
Parametrix (Parametrics in transcript) told the commission it is two months into a 46-month study to site and program a North County recycling and transfer station; the firm outlined siting principles, a search area and criteria, and next steps including public outreach and an eventual SEPA process.
Carl, the Parametrix project lead, briefed the Solid Waste Advisory Commission on May 1 about a contract to conduct a siting and program study for a North County recycling and transfer station.
Carl said the consultant team is "2 months into real work" and that the project schedule in the contract runs about 46 months. "This work is projected to extend almost 4 years. It's 46 months on the schedule," he said, and described the study as divided into phases that include data collection, facility programming, siting-criteria development, public involvement, and, eventually, a SEPA environmental review.
Parametrix presented three guiding principles for siting: transfer stations are essential public facilities that must remain accessible in emergencies; planning should use a long-term horizon (the firm said it is using at least a 60-year planning horizon); and facilities should be designed to be "good neighbors," with attention to operations, aesthetics and off-site traffic mitigation. The firm described a non-site-specific conceptual layout that assumes substantial on-site queuing, customer and trailer access points, and off-site improvements to add acceleration, deceleration and turn lanes.
The presentation described a search area bounded by the county line to the north and the Columbia River to the west, with a preliminary southern boundary near State Route 502/NE 200th Street. Carl said the study team set an "ideal" developable site size of about 13 acres and a bare minimum of 9 acres; the team will consider aggregated contiguous parcels where appropriate. "For our siting criteria, we've concluded to get everything in in a really functional way like we showed you on that hypothetical site. We're talking about 13 acres," Carl said.
Parametrix said it has submitted a draft data summary and a nearly complete facility program to the county and is finishing a siting-criteria memo. The firm also described formation of a Siting Review Committee composed of subject-matter experts to review work products; the committee was expected to be assembled within weeks.
Carl warned the schedule could be affected by external steps out of the consultant team’s control, and he said the SEPA review (an environmental impact statement) will be a lengthy task once candidate sites are identified. He said outreach and briefings to interested parties will begin once the county and the siting-review committee finalize the public-involvement plan.
No sites have been selected; Parametrix will use GIS screening to identify candidate parcels against the published criteria and will bring results back to the county and the advisory commission for review.
