Hon. JENNINGS RANDOLPH, CONSOLIDATED CITY OF JACKSONVILLE, Chairman of Committee on Public Works, DEAR SIR: Your letter of August 4 is hereby acknowledged and the questions posed therein are answered in the same chronological order. 1. Our consulting engineer talked with both the Department of Housing and Urban Development and also Public Health Service. They received much more encouragement from the Department of Housing and Urban Development than Public Health Service. Public Health Service also indicated that it was difficult to obtain funds for programs of this type, stating they were looking for demonstration programs with unique features. Basically, therefore, negotiations were assumed with the Department of Housing and Urban Development due to the fact that financial assistance was better. 2. The City presently has no service charge or fee for collection of solid waste. However, for the operation to be self-sustaining a monthly fee of Four Dollars, plus ($4+) per customer probably would suffice at this time. 3. In our present operation no attempt is made to determine the characteristics of the waste being disposed of. However, our future plan is to determine the nature of the waste in terms of weights involved and sources of origin. It is hoped these answers will help you complete your hearing report. Yours sincerely, JAMES S. ENGLISH, P.E., Senator RANDOLPH. Conrad Gunti? Mr. Gunti. STATEMENT OF CONRAD GUNTI Mr. GUNTI. Thank you, sir. We appreciate the opportunity to appear here today and give our views and comments as far as solid waste disposal within the outlying areas of Duval County or the old unincorporated area. We as a group of collectors collect in about 790 square miles of this town. The old city limits was 37 square miles. So you can see we do have quite a bit of area to cover and quite a few problems. Nonetheless, the problem of labor, as already brought out today, there has to be more of the human element put into this particular job. There has got to be some consideration given to labor in this regard. SANITARY LAND FILL We, as already pointed out, dispose of our garbage primarily by the sanitary land fill method. All of the collectors in the outlying areas of Duval County use this method. There are approximately five or six of these sanitary land fills dispersed in areas of each of these collector's operations. One of the major problems we are experiencing in land filling is the ever-increasing supply or the increase of noncompostible or nonthe type of material that just will not decompose and break up. I don't know if there is anything that the Federal Government or anybody can do about it, because I know that there is just-it is a method which the packaging people have to save money. So I don't know whether we can do anything in that regard or not, but it is a problem. We as a group stand ready to be of any assistance that we can with Government. We have quite a few people involved in this operation in Duval County, and any time that we can be of any assistance with anyone in the county or consolidated government, we will be very happy to do so. YARD TRASH PROBLEM One of the major problems that has come to my mind with regard to pollution, and that, of course, is what we are talking about today, is that we have become-the yard trash problem which we are associated with in our garbage collection outfit. We have to obviously collect garbage three times a week, but we also give a yard trash service once a week and it is an ever-increasing problem. You collect it, but then you have to put it somewhere. You put it on a place where you hope that it will decompose and add to the fill, but we don't know whether that is a complete answer or not, because there are less and less areas that this can be taken care of. We would like to see some study given to the idea of burning some of this stuff. Now, I realize that this is probably going against the pollution idea here, but is there a pollutant factor in this regard? We don't know, but it would be something to consider. If there are any questions, I would be glad to try to help solve any— answer any questions that might be forthcoming from you, sir. QUESTION OF POSSIBLE PRIVATE INCINERATOR Senator RANDOLPH. Would you be in a position, Mr. Gunti, as a private group to build your own incinerator? Mr. GUNTI. I would doubt it, quite frankly, just because of the fact that we operate on a franchise basis, which is a 5-year franchise, and the time limit involved is just not Senator RANDOLPH. It is a bid matter? Mr. GUNTI. No. It is a territorial franchise which is renewed periodically, usually each calendar 5-year period, and it is not necessarily bids. It is just historically the area that is territorially franchised. Senator RANDOLPH. How many employees have you? Mr. GUNTI. We as a company have 41, and I am speaking for an association here, that I don't know exactly how many people are involved in the county operations. Senator RANDOLPH. The wage and salary schedule, how does yours compare as private franchise against the city? Mr. GUNTI Well, I would say that-I can only speak for my particular company, but it is comparable. In fact, it is a little higher, but we do not have a pension program, which is probably of some significance. LABOR PROBLEM Senator RANDOLPH. Then the problem of labor is a problem for both the city and for the franchise group? Mr. GUNTI. It is an ever increasing problem for us. Just like Mr. English indicated, you can't find people that want to be garbagemen any more, and it is a fact that some people-and they get less and less service with the people that we hire for some reason. It is just one of these things, that labor is not as good as it used to be apparently, and one of these days it might come down to the point where somebody is driving a truck, ringing a bell and somebody is going to have to empty their own. I don't know what it will take. It is getting to that kind of a problem. Senator RANDOLPH. My wife has a disposal now in the sink. What about a disposal to take care of everything else and cut out collection? Mr. GUNTI Well, if that would be practical Senator RANDOLPH. I don't know. Mr. GUNTI (continuing). It would be a good idea. Mr. GUNTI. I don't know either. Give it some thought of some sort of a laser beam that would just disintegrate everything, and maybe that is what it is going to come to. I just don't know. I think there is going to have to be a lot of thought given to it because, as indicated earlier, it is a mammoth thing. It is increasing every day. Senator RANDOLPH. Thank you very much. Mr. GUNTI. Thank you, sir. Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Hennig. STATEMENT OF E. G. HENNIG, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS, ORLANDO, FLA. Mr. HENNIG. Senator, first on behalf of the American Public Works, Florida Chapter, Association, I would like to say thank you for the privilege of appearing as president and also as director of the public service for the city of Orlando and thank you for the nice meeting that you attended of ours at the national convention in Miami Beach. We certainly enjoyed it. Senator RANDOLPH. Thank you, sir. COLLECTION SYSTEM Mr. HENNIG. I am glad that Mr. English brought up the collection system. As you will note, according to my presentation, I have also considered the collection system as a part of the overall problem of collection and disposing of solid waste. Actually not to follow word for word, in reducing it so we can move along with the program, I would recommend that any municipality or any county first go into a system, some type of a system. So often our collection systems are a hodgepodge, and in essence this represents the Orlando story, and we were that way. We had approximately 65 to 70 trucks of all types, all denominations, rear-end, open-scow type, and we went to a system-we went to a front-end loading system, sir, and we did so after considerable study. First it was a 24-yard compaction-type system and we reduced our vehicles down from this 65 to 70 down to 20 24-cubic-yard disposal units. This is the collection compaction unit. We reduced our labor force proportionately, our drivers proportionately and, as you can see, that was the saving that sold the mayor and the council in putting this system into effect. Now, I am not endorsing any system, but I am saying some type of compaction, some type of either the rear end loading or the front end. We went to the front-end loading system from a safety viewpoint. Your whole operation is in front, not behind where you can't see, but this is the main reason we accepted it. Also I mentioned economy, which I will pass over at this time. In Florida we have good roads, good road system, and it really doesn't matter. If you comply with the State's highway department's regulation on the weight per axle, you will be all set as far as your system is concerned. Going back to the collection and to the department, sir, I would like to briefly say that we have been that route too. We have tried to build up an esprit de corps by furnishing uniforms, high rate of pay, task force basis along with a number of units to be collected per day, and recognize these people as individuals rather than a labor force. We have been very successful. We have a salary 10-year projection plan, starting from your base pay, your 6-month increase, right on up to 10 years. You know where you are going. You can see it. You don't have to have someone verbally say, "We think you're going to do this; you're going to do that." It is there. We have 12-percent fringe benefits with base pay. Our base pay-the starting toter, laborer, is approximately a hundred dollars a week take-home pay. Senator RANDOLPH. That is more than the city of Jacksonville? Now, this is also in addition to fringe benefits. Now, we realize the labor situation. So what we are trying to do is to meet it head on and compete with it and make these people proud of their jobs, proud of their department, and be recognized as one of the outstanding departments of the city and not be catching all of the dregs. We would like to also talk about collection systems, sir. I heard you say a moment ago about different types. The city of Orlando collects, of course, its own individual waste. We have no private collectors within the city. However, out in the county it is entirely all private collectors. We have an explosion of population in the city of Orlando, central Florida, not only from the Cape, but from Disney World. I had the privilege on June 20 of listening to Gen. William E. Potter, vice president of Disney World, who made the statement, "We not only plan, but we do." His comments pertaining to solid waste were something of interest. It should be to all of us. They are going to use a pneumatic vacuum type collection for all of their different collection points. It is the same principle as in your department stores where we used to put the tube in and they'd send it back up to the office to make change. This goes into a centralized system, which is ground up, and from there, sir, it goes into your sewage treatment plant. Now, I have not had the working details explained to me other than general, but I did want to bring this out. In Europe, sir, you will find other type systems similar to this that Senator RANDOLPH. That futuristic look of Disneyland, now only in a pilot project or a scale, I believe it will really be tested for the first time here in Florida. I think we have information to that effect from our subcommittee. So it is very important that we watch what happens. Mr. HENNIG. I agree, sir. This is terriffic. I think in the due course of time, in years to come, that this will be one of your major ways of collecting the refuse, garbage and trash. Now, we have talked about Federal aid, and this is a point that I wanted to mention. Most towns are unable to finance their own system of collection and disposal. We feel that we in Orlando are very fortunate. We went into a service-charge basis, a fee system-type basis. Our department operates on about $1,716,000. It is a break-even type of operation. We also include in our budget our capital outlay equipment, our salaries, our fringe benefits, our insurance, everything to make this a self-sustaining and self-paying operation. And as far as the collection is concerned, if you have a good compaction unit that will not drain upon the public streets, until there is some system such as laser beams or something that will grind it down in weight and volume to where you can dispose of it some other way, we feel that your present collection systems are good. Private capital, private consulting firms have really gone into great depth and great study to explore collection systems, and I feel that in many cases we are ahead of Europe, but as far as collections, the exotic methods, Europe is right ahead of us, and we should take a few lessons from them. In Florida you can dig about 4 or 5 feet and you are in water, even in your Ridge section, up in the northwest section, the Panhandle of Florida. Now, in Florida if we had valleys and depth layers and rows of cover dirt, disposal of your refuse would be very easy if you used the land fill, but we have as big a problem down here second to none as far as any State is concerned. DISPOSAL We have an old incinerator, such as Mr. English mentioned. It was built in 1940. It is still in operation. It doesn't have proper fly ash control, but we use a combination. We work with this incinerator. We put all of our combustibles, our household refuse in this incinerator. Our commercial cardboard waste and our trash goes into a sanitary land fill, and we hope that in due course of time that we will be able to have a total of 1,100 tons per day in incineration ready, willing and able to serve the central Florida area. Of course, this is Orlando and Orange County. I would like to report that Orange County, although I do not directly represent them, are in the process now of putting in a controlled county collection system. Also they are in the process of opening up a 1,500- to 2,000-acre land fill, nonburning, which will be properly maintained and supervised under the county health officials. I believe this summation represents our situation in Orlando and I feel that when you speak about collection and disposal, it is all one problem and we must face up to it. Senator RANDOLPH. I like the emphasis you gave to collection, Mr. Hennig, not that the other factors aren't important. |