Folsom signs up for Grama long‑term organics processing as part of regional procurement; $45M estimate over 15 years

The City Council on Oct. 14 approved a long‑term organics processing agreement with Grama (often styled as "Grama") reached through a joint procurement with Sacramento County and the City of Sacramento to process Folsom's residential organic waste, including weekly green‑bin collections and bulky organic pickups.

Marie McKee, General Services manager, told the council the agreement is estimated to cost about $45 million over a 15‑year period; the contract would begin as a 10‑year term with an optional five‑year extension. McKee said the joint procurement allowed the jurisdictions to aggregate tonnage and command lower prices than Folsom could secure alone.

McKee said the procurement was designed to meet California's SB 1383 short‑lived climate pollutant reduction requirements, which require jurisdictions to reduce organic waste disposal and secure procurement of compost and other end products. The selected services combine established composting facilities with anaerobic digestion for food waste where appropriate; Grama was selected in part for its ability to produce marketable compost and mulch products and to broker additional material if needed to meet procurement targets.

"Grama is actually the largest processor of composting in our state, so they are a very stable vendor for us to contract with," McKee said. She noted the agreement is paid from the Solid Waste Operating Fund and will not affect the general fund.

Councilmembers asked about plastic bag handling, procurement quantities, and whether the contracted materials needed to be applied within the city. McKee said the vendor's debagging equipment separates accepted bags and the organic material proceeds to digestion or composting while non‑compostable bags are landfilled; she added Grama's processing yields high‑quality end material with established markets and that the vendor will broker material as needed to meet state procurement targets.

The contract was approved unanimously on roll call. McKee said the county and the City of Sacramento adopted similar contracts earlier, and that Folsom accounts for a small portion of the aggregated tonnage but a larger share of the tonnage slated to go to Grama under the selected scenario.

Votes at a glance: Res. No. 11471 — authorize agreement with Grama for long‑term organics processing (estimated $45M over 15 years) — Passed 5–0 (Leary: yes; Raffel: yes; Rorba: yes; Kozlowski: yes; Aquino: yes).