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Solid & Hazardous Waste program details complaint response, vouchers, inspections and prevention work
Summary
Solid & Hazardous Waste manager Steve Brown told the board the program enforces local regulations and WAC 173-350, responds to roughly 300 complaints per year, issues disposal vouchers funded from Olympic View Transfer Station tipping fees, runs a pollution-prevention assistance program that visits ~300 small businesses annually under a Department of Ecology contract, and inspects schools, camps and about 80 solid-waste facilities each year.
Steve Brown, manager of Kitsap Public Health District’s Solid & Hazardous Waste (SHW) Program, gave the board an overview on May 5 of enforcement, complaint response and prevention activities across the county. "Last year our team responded to about 300 complaints," Brown said, adding that the division enforces state standards (WAC 173-350) and local regulations and that much of complaint-response work is funded through tipping fees.
Brown explained that the program issues vouchers for disposal fees—funded by a $2-per-ton set-aside from municipal solid-waste tipping at the Olympic View Transfer Station—so that cost is not a barrier to cleaning up properties. The vouchers are tracked and may carry expiration dates, but redemption is monitored at the transfer-station scalehouse. Brown said vouchers are a key tool to remove cost as a barrier and that formal enforcement (notice-and-order letters, citations and, if necessary, district-court actions) is used when voluntary compliance fails.
On facilities, Brown said SHW issues permits and performs about 80 inspections a year of transfer stations, drop boxes, composters, closed/abandoned landfills and select recyclers. He reported there are roughly 40 closed and abandoned landfills in the county, with three large sites (Hansville, Olalla and Olympic View) supervised through the Model Toxics Control Act process and Ecology oversight.
Brown described the Pollution Prevention Assistance (PPA) program—a 20-year partnership with the Washington State Department of Ecology that provides non-regulatory consultations to small-quantity hazardous-waste generators (about 300 visits per year). The PPA program has helped businesses replace petroleum-based solvents with aqueous parts washers and has distributed spill kits and other equipment to incentivize participation.
Brown also covered school and camp safety inspections (about 40 K–12 inspections per year, camps annually), sharps collection and the program’s collaboration with local code enforcement, tribal governments and the Kitsap Nuisance Abatement Team (KNAT) to address long-standing problem properties. Board members asked about capacity; Brown and colleagues said staff currently manage the workload but noted some properties can remain unresolved for years and may require multi-agency abatement funding and legal processes.
Next steps: Brown said new solid-waste regulations will be brought forward for board consideration in the future; staff will continue to monitor complaint volumes, voucher redemptions and interagency abatement needs.
