Environmental Services Center will cost -- not save -- city money Environmental Services Center will cost -- not save -- city money (November 12, 2004)

Auditor's report could cause stink at City Hall

by Jocelyn Dong

A proposed 19-acre garbage and recycling center that Palo Alto city staff has urged the City Council to approve is not the money-saver it's been touted as, according to City Auditor Sharon Erickson.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Instead of saving the city $1 million a year, the "Environmental Services Center" -- planned for the Baylands -- would cost the city $1.6 million more annually than the city's current plans for disposing of waste and handling recycling, an analysis by Erickson found.

What's more, the city's Public Works staff apparently derived the so-called savings from a 5-year-old report -- which wasn't even studying a 19-acre facility.

The questionable number is significant because it's been the basis for the council's deliberations on the issue. Higher costs for a proposed center could also mean rate-payers would end up footing the bill, one center opponent has charged.

The city's dump at the end of Embarcadero Road is expected to be full by 2011. Because of the vast complexity of waste and recycling programs, Erickson and her staff were brought on board in May to analyze and clarify the city's options -- in particular, the idea of building a 19-acre center on top of the landfill.

Aside from refuting the $1 million savings, Erickson's report calculates consistently higher costs for a Palo Alto facility than city staff presented to council in August.

A full-scale center would cost $14 million to build and $8.5 million a year to operate. Not building the center, and relying on a plant in Sunnyvale that Palo Alto has already contracted with, would cost the city $6.9 million a year.

The 19-acre facility would be a model of environmental sustainability, proponents say. It would include a place to sort garbage, a station for transferring the waste to trucks that would take it to a landfill, a composting area, a recycling drop-off and processing plant, a permanent facility to accept household hazardous waste, a storage area for bins, another area for storing asphalt and concrete, a visitors' center and administrative offices.

Part of the operating expense would be rent. The city owns the land and leases it to itself, in effect, transferring the money from the Refuse Enterprise Fund to the General Fund.

Proponents of the plan say that a Palo Alto facility would keep garbage trucks from driving to Sunnyvale, and residents from having to go there to recycle items they can't otherwise put out for curbside pick up.

Erickson also analyzed other options, including a scaled-down, 6.2-acre center, which also would cost more than city staff had estimated.

"Staff represented to council that they were presenting options that could save a million dollars. Now updated figures show that staff recommended a project would cost more than some of the other options. And that's the key issue here. Given that it costs more, does the council want it?" Erickson said.

Director of Public Works Glenn Roberts, however, refuted the dim interpretation of Erickson's report.

"I draw a totally different conclusion from her report than that," he said. "These are all simply preliminary numbers. All the input factors are going to change over time. These should not be considered absolute numbers."

"Input factors" included such variables as costs, amounts of refuse, and waste-management practices. Erickson agreed that the numbers in her report were "a snapshot" in time.

Bolstering his view that the city should move forward with examining all its options, Roberts pointed to the report's figures for processing refuse. If the city decided to build a facility but not charge itself rent for the land, then the costs for processing waste could be millions of dollars lower than using the Sunnyvale center.

"That strongly affirms the need to proceed to the next step," Roberts said.

Additional information, not included in the auditor's report, would further strengthen his recommendation, he said.

In August, the council voted to move forward on the project by commissioning a study of the potential impacts of the 19-acre center, plus five alternatives.

At the time, Public Works staff said the city needed to start on an environmental analysis soon because of the amount of time it would take to conduct. Normally, the council would approve a project in concept before commissioning an environmental report.

On Monday, the council will receive the auditor's report, along with a request to approve a contract for $368,000 with EIP Associates for the environmental-impact report. EIP was selected by the city's Public Works and Planning departments and has contracted with the city previously, to assess the environmental impacts of the Sand Hill Road project.

Despite Roberts' assertions that the report supports the proposed center, one person who was pleased with the report was Emily Renzel, a former councilwoman who has been urging the council to pass entirely on building a recycling and waste center. Instead, she wants to see the landfill become a park, as has been planned for years.

"I feel a little bit vindicated. I had no idea (the numbers) would come out as compelling as they are," Renzel said.

She voiced her opinion that staff was pushing the project for reasons other than promoting sustainability.

"It appears to me that the project is largely driven by the desire to continue transfers to the General Fund from the Refuse Enterprise Fund -- at the expense of our parkland. This is shortsighted and unconscionable," Renzel wrote in a letter to local media.

Roberts, however, flatly denied the allegation.

"That's not true," Roberts said. "I take serious issue with that misrepresentation."

His responsibility, he said, is to advocate for the needs of the city and raise possibilities, and to let the council decide which programs are important.

The whole issue of whether to build a recycling center is complicated, involving existing city contracts with waste-management firms, preferred uses of land, and the city's pride in being a leader in sustainability.

In addition to the auditor's report and the contract with EIP Associates Monday, the council will consider a request by Public Works staff to develop a "zero-waste" policy and will review a comparison of the city's Comprehensive Plan and Baylands Master Plan.

Senior Staff Writer Jocelyn Dong can be reached at jdong@paweekly.com.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.