Palm County solid‑waste advisory panel advances plan updates as Port Angeles plans compactor baler

The Palm County Solid Waste Advisory Committee on April 22 reviewed updates to the county solid‑waste plan and heard from the City of Port Angeles about funding to install a compactor baler at the city transfer station.

Chair Megan Euker called the meeting to order and confirmed a quorum before staff and jurisdictional representatives walked the committee through Chapter 2 background updates and Chapter 3 legal citations. Steve Gray, the county public‑works representative, told the committee the county had just completed semi‑annual groundwater and surface‑water post‑closure sampling at the closed Lake Creek Landfill and that the county will continue monitoring ‘‘until we can show ecology and regulators that we don't need to continue sampling.’’

Why it matters: committee members said accurate county‑level waste generation and composition data are central to the plan's recommendations. Several members urged the staff to use Ecology's county datasets for 2023–24 tonnages, update tables to show trends (for example 2018 and 2024 side‑by‑side), and avoid duplicative, costly composition studies the county cannot fund on its own.

Port Angeles presentation and operational plans An official identified in the meeting as the City of Port Angeles utilities director said the city received funding to acquire and install a compactor baler at the Port Angeles transfer station and is researching permitting and minor building modifications. ‘‘We're gonna purchase that unit, do some minor modifications to that building, place the compactor baler and a little conveyor in there and get that started,’’ the utilities director said, adding the unit would likely occupy about three bays of the compost building and the city hopes the equipment will be operational ‘‘before the end of the year.’’ The official said compacting cardboard and mixed plastics should reduce hauling costs and improve hauling efficiency.

Committee members and private operators pressed on practical limits: hauling costs, staffing and contaminant sorting. Murray's Olympic Disposal district manager Joey Deese said manual separation of OCC from mixed streams is not feasible without a sorting facility; private operators warned unmanned drop boxes raise illegal dumping and contamination risks.

Organics, composting and biosolids Port Angeles staff said they are considering a composting pilot in spring but emphasized capacity limits. The city official said composting would ‘‘depend on what comes in’’ and noted biosolids volumes may require continued hauling or separate markets. A local operator described producing blended topsoil and selling topsoil products but said a broken screen and seasonal water availability have constrained output.

Plan drafting, data sources and statutes Staff walked the committee through required plan elements (participating jurisdictions, interlocal agreements and a map) and recommended migrating some background graphics earlier in Chapter 2. Members discussed aligning population growth wording to the comprehensive plan's projections and recommended clearer citations for RCWs and UTC/flow‑control rules in Chapter 3. Committee members agreed the plan should rely on Ecology's waste generation and recovery spreadsheets and that staff should request county‑level breakdowns where missing.

Public comment and next steps Public commenters raised two items for follow‑up: ensuring tribal partners have opportunity to participate in updates and studying larger‑scale solutions such as industrial symbiosis or waste‑to‑energy models. One commenter who had visited Scandinavian systems noted municipal energy recovery practices and suggested investigating whether local cogen infrastructure could be repurposed. A planning‑commission member with operational experience cautioned that compaction and combustion equipment require substantial maintenance and pollution‑control systems and urged careful evaluation.

The committee closed with housekeeping: members were reminded of vacancies on advisory seats (including an at‑large seat and alternates), the public application process for appointments, and that elections for chair and vice chair plus continued plan work are scheduled for the May 27 meeting.

What comes next: staff were asked to update tables using Ecology data where possible, clarify language around destination landfills in the plan (noting regional destinations in Washington), confirm data sources for specific transfer stations, and circulate a revised draft ahead of the next meeting.