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Council members press county to clarify ash destinations and racial‑equity scoring in long‑haul bids
Summary
Several council members asked how bidders ranked landfill destinations on environmental‑justice metrics and pressed staff for demographic and environmental data about host communities where ash or hauled waste would be disposed. DEP said landfill locations were scored using an EJ screening tool (EJScreen percentiles) as part of procurement scoring.
Council members repeatedly returned to where the county’s ash and long‑haul waste would go and how bidders were scored on environmental‑justice criteria. Will Giordano and others asked whether proposals required bidders to identify landfill locations and whether the county assessed the demographic and pollution burdens of those host communities.
Kaylee of DEP said bidders listed landfill destinations in proposals and staff ran those locations through an EJ screening tool, producing percentile scores on socioeconomic and environmental indicators (percent low income, percent people of color, limited English proficiency, air‑quality indicators) that were compared across proposals. "So they had to tell us the locations...and then we used an environmental justice screening tool...and we scored that as part of the proposals," Kaylee said. Council members asked staff to provide the scoring methodology and the underlying location data as part of the fall work sessions where legally allowed by procurement rules.
