By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — A $20,000 price increase to $60,000 from WRR Environmental Services of Eau Claire for the Clean Sweep hazardous materials program has prompted Dunn County officials to seek additional Requests for Proposals (RFPs).
The total quoted cost for conducting a hazardous waste Clean Sweep would go from $39,059 to $59,792 in 2020, said Morgan Gerk, director of the Dunn County Solid Waste and Recycling division, at a meeting of the Solid Waste and Recycling Management Board January 7.
The quoted cost from WRR Environmental for the agricultural Clean Sweep in 2019 was $5,898 and would increase to $7,034 in 2020, representing a 19 percent increase, he said.
The quoted cost for the household Clean Sweep in 2019 was $33,161 and would increase to $52,757 in 2020, representing a 59 percent increase, Gerk said.
The total for 2019 was $39,059, which would increase to $59,792 in 2020, representing a 53 percent increase overall, he said.
Gerk said he would obtain three RFPs all together for the Clean Sweep program.
The last Clean Sweep in Dunn County last September was enormously successful. A steady stream of cars waited in line at the Dunn County Transfer Station west of Menomonie and at the Colfax Fairgrounds.
People who worked at the Clean Sweep ended up staying for several hours past the time when the Clean Sweep collection was to have ended in order to accommodate all of the people who were waiting in line.
Gerk said the draft of the RFP is expected to be completed by January 16, and the anticipated date for awarding the contract is in early March.
The solid waste and recycling division budgeted $24,000 in 2019 for the Clean Sweep program, but the total cost was $61,866, offset by only $15,500 from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
The remaining $46,000 came out of the solid waste and recycling budget.
Dunn County’s solid waste and recycling program has an annual budget of $2.9 million.
An adjustment of $290,062 was needed for the 2019 budget. The shortfall in recycling commodity sales was $105,000, and the shortfall in operations, which includes hauling, staffing and maintenance, was $186,062.
Reduced hours
The schedule of reduced hours at the Dunn County solid waste and recycling collection sites that went into effect January 1 has caused quite a lot of chaos.
Frank Bammert, chair of the Town of Menomonie, said he had received a number of telephone calls about the reduced hours.
If the hours are going to changed again, Bammert suggested the collection sites stay open at the regular hours for an extra week and that the attendants should tell people, “technically we are closed today, but don’t come next week.”
Gerk said solid waste and recycling staff had issued several news releases, had posted the new hours on Facebook and on the solid waste and recycling division’s website and had handed out thousands of flyers.
“You will never get everybody 100 percent,” he said.
Because the hours are reduced, the collection sites saw an increase in traffic, Gerk said, noting that it will take a while for county residents to adjust to the different hours.
“We are serving more people in a smaller amount of time,” he said.
The Christmas and New Year’s holidays and the ice storm also did not help for the congestion at the collection sites, noted Megen Hines, recycling specialist.
Since Christmas Day and New Year’s Day fell on a Wednesday this year, the solid waste and recycling collection sites that would have normally been open were closed, causing increased congestion at the sites on the first Saturday in January when the reduced hours of operation started.
Other business
In other business, the Dunn County Solid Waste & Recycling Management Board:
• Learned that the first “work group” of solid waste and recycling stakeholders had been held January 6. One of the purposes of the work group is to promote dialogue and to disseminate information to municipalities so that anticipated increases in the per capita fees can be worked into their budgets for next year. The work group plans to meet monthly.
• Learned the solid waste and recycling division had sold a load of non-ferrous metals on December 31 for $15,229.95 and had sold a load that included aluminum, copper, brass and stainless steel for $17,370.32.
The Dunn County Solid Waste & Recycling Management Board meets next on February 4 at 4:30 p.m. in Room 60 of the Community Services Building at 3001 US Highway 12 east in Menomonie.
