HomeMy WebLinkAboutCSD-09-034 - Leaf Program 2009 Follow-upREPORT
REPORT TO:
Community Services Department
DATE OF MEETING:
May 11, 2009
SUBMITTED BY:
Jim Witmer, Director of Operations
PREPARED BY:
Jim Witmer, Director of Operations
WARD(S) INVOLVED:
All
DATE OF REPORT: May 4, 2009
REPORT NO.:
CSD-09-034
SUBJECT:
LEAF PROGRAM 2009 FOLLOW-UP
RECOMMENDATION:
“That Council approve the closure of the following leaf dump sites: Schaefer Park,
Hofstetter Park, Cherry Park, Eastforest Trail Parking Lot and Ardelt Place, and;
That the loose leaf collection program identified as Alternative 1 in the Table, consisting
of a single collection in November and hotspots collected as required to maintain
drainage and safety be approved for 2009.”
BACKGROUND:
On April 6, 2009 at Special Council a Loose Leaf Collection Program report CSD-09-026 and a
PowerPoint presentation was given to Council. The report highlighted the following as it relates
to leaf collection:
Program objectives,
Current options available for city residents,
Process for leaf collection,
Activities associated with the way leaves are collected,
Challenges facing the program,
Costs associated with the delivery of the program,
Alternative solutions for consideration, and
A communication strategy associated with the final decision by Council.
After further dialogue around the current program and options available for Council’s
consideration, Council requested that staff endeavour to report back to the May 11, 2009
Community Services Committee meeting with information on the following:
1. What is currently being undertaken by the Cities of Waterloo and Cambridge and their
level of interest in pursuing a coordinated solution;
2. Additional enforcement techniques that could be implemented at leaf dump sites to
prevent illegal dumping;
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3. The number of additional street sweepers that would be required to reduce the City-wide
cycle down to 3 weeks;
4. Results of preliminary public consultation on the alternative solutions;
5. The potential operation of the street sweeping equipment during the night shift; and,
6. The costs involved in distributing yard waste bags to residents.
REPORT:
The following information is provided based on the questions asked by Council.
1. Staff initially spoke with representatives from each City about their current program. The
following is a summary of the current programs offered by the two cities and information
regarding the Region’s Yard Waste Program.
Loose Leaf Collection by the City of Waterloo
a)
The loose leaf collection program is well entrenched in the City of Waterloo. Residents
on any street in the City rake leaves to the edge of the street during the fall for pickup by:
City crews using leaf vacuums and dump trucks with leaf boxes; or by loaders and dump
trucks. In 2008 the City program was intended to provide a minimum of two passes on
each street over a 5 week period beginning the last week in October. Residents were
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advised to have leaves out no later than Sunday, November 16, 2008. Approximately
20 PWS employees work on the crews that provide this service. Waterloo has recently
approved a reduced collection of once for the season for their city in 2009 with higher
drop areas (hotspots) collected as necessary.
City of Cambridge
b)
The 2008 City of Cambridge leaf collection website lists the “Environmentally Friendly
Leaf Disposal Alternatives” of mulching and composting first. It then provides
information on “City Loose Leaf Collection Services”. Small pockets of heavily treed
areas are identified and it is noted that collection will take place in these areas for
approximately 2 weeks beginning mid October. The web page then provides a map with
the City split into 4 areas and provides for one week collection in each area assigning a
deadline date to each area. It would appear that the heavily treed areas will also receive
collection during this period since they are included in one of the four larger areas. For
residents who miss the deadline, they are instructed to take their leaves and other
organic waste to the landfill site in Cambridge. The Region provides the same yard
waste service to Cambridge however there is no mention of this on the web page for leaf
collection.
Bagged Leaf Collection by the Region of Waterloo
c)
The Region of Waterloo serves the residents of Waterloo with a Yard Waste Collection
program which provides for pick up every second week from April until the end of
November. Residents may use the yard waste program for disposal of leaves by
bagging the leaves in a paper yard waste bag (or placing them in a marked container).
The Region contracts this work out to a contractor and pays the contractor a per tonne
unit rate for this service. In 2008 the Region paid $150/tonne for collection/shredding
and delivery to the landfill. A new 7 year contract was just awarded which will see this
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cost reduced dramatically to $100/tonne in 2009 (the cost will rise by CPI each year of
the contract). The Region strongly encourages composting of all yard waste and
provides a variety of composting seminars annually and also provides composters to
residents at no cost. Leaves (or any yard waste) may be dropped off at the waste
management site on Erb St. W. free of charge.
A series of 15 questions were asked of Cambridge and Waterloo and were used to supplement
the information available from their website. The following table summarizes the information
received. We also took the liberty to insert the proposed fourth alternative that was introduced
to Council for comparative purposes.
LOOSE LEAF COLLECTION PROGRAM COMPARISONS
Activity Kitchener Alternative Alternative Waterloo Cambridge Additional
12Comments
1. Do you
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
have a
Loose Leaf
Collection
Program?
2. Does your Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Kitchener
program started zones
4 areas - 4 areas – 4 areas – 2 areas – 19 4 areas
havein 2008
39 zones 44 zones 44 zones zones
specific
collection
areas?
3. Do you No Yes Yes Yes Yes
have fixed
schedules
for
collection?
4. What is the
8 weeks 4 weeks 8 weeks 5 weeks 4 weeks Heavy leaf
duration of drop areas
yourstart in
program? Cambridge -
mid-October
5. When does Mid-November Mid-Mid-October November
rd
theOctober 3rdOctober 3
program
start?
6. Do you Yes Yes Yes No No Cambridge
have leaf reviewed and
dump sites decided
or transfer against
stations? implementing
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Activity Kitchener Alternative Alternative Waterloo Cambridge Additional
12Comments
7. Do you
No Yes Yes Yes Yes
have Do’s
and Don’ts
for
residents?
8. Do you *No No *No No No *Residents to
allow bags de-bag leaves
in your at dump sites
program?
9. Do you No No No No No Spot cleaning
have a based on
scheduled road safety
spring and drainage
cleanup? concerns
10. Do you
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
allow raking
to the curb
side?
11. Do you pick Yes No No No No Residents
up leaves if advised to
the resident take leaves to
has missed Regional
their date? landfill. Do
not respond
to resident
complaint.
12. Do you
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
advertise
and support
composting
and
mulching?
13. Is your Yes Yes Yes Yes No Cambridge’s
current program
program working well –
under was reviewed
review?3 years ago
$512,785 $300,000 $470,000 $214,058 $350,000
14. What was
the cost of
your
program in
2008?
15. Has your
Yes No No Yes No Cambridge
municipality had some
considered very informal
allowingdiscussions
bagged leaf about it. It
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Activity Kitchener Alternative Alternative Waterloo Cambridge Additional
12Comments
collection
was not
by the pursued.
Region as
the only
option?
2. We have reviewed the issues associated with illegal dumping at our leaf dumps and offer
the following options for consideration:
Using By-law Staff:
a. Provide security staffing at the facilities to prevent illegal dumping for the leaf collection
program time period:
$44,500
1. From 3 pm – 7 am at a cost of per site for the 9 weeks, or
$12,700
2. Weekends only per site for the 9 weeks, or
$7,000
b. During the spring on weekends per site. Anecdotally, on the recent Easter
weekend one of the Enforcement Division’s trail bike officers was at two of the leaf
dump sites and 9 out of 10 people that drove up to the site left when they saw him there.
The other individual debated with the officer why he shouldn’t be allowed to dump there
as other people had.
Using Private Security:
c. Provide security staffing at the facilities to prevent illegal dumping for the leaf collection
program time period:
$21,200
1. From 3 pm – 7 am at a cost of per site for the 9 weeks, or
$6,100
2. Weekends only per site for the 9 weeks, or
$3,400
d. During the spring on weekends per site. Anecdotally, on the recent Easter
weekend one of the Enforcement Division’s trail bike officers was at two of the leaf dump
sites and 9 out of 10 people that drove up to the site left when they saw him there. The
other individual debated with the officer why he shouldn’t be allowed to dump there as
other people had.
$10,000
e. Install cameras at the sites to monitor activity at a cost of per site. There are
privacy laws and restrictions associated with cameras that we would need to comply with
as well in order to place cameras at these sites.
f. Reduce the number of leaf dumps to 5 for 2009 and eliminate them altogether for 2010
in keeping with our municipal counterparts in Cambridge and Waterloo. This would
assist staff by reducing the efforts necessary to monitor their use and potentially reduce
$105,000
the incidents of illegal dumping. This would save annually in set up and take
down costs as well as hauling from the sites.
3. A review of the current street sweeping practices has confirmed that the addition of one (1)
street sweeper will facilitate a sweeping cycle of 3 weeks from the current 4 week cycle.
$190,000
This additional unit can be added to the equipment reserve for 2010 and will cost .
4. The following survey questions would form the basis for the resident consultation on the
loose leaf collection program:
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a) Do you support Option 1, Homeowners take responsibility for leaf disposal
b) Do you support Option 2, Residents required to place leaves in bags or containers
c) Do you support Option 3, Status Quo,
d) Do you support Option 4, New Leaf Collection Program or
e) Do you support Alternative 1, Single collection and reduced leaf dump sites
Please answer with a yes or no response. The survey will commence in late June, which
takes advantage of getting the survey published in the next Your Kitchener publication which
will be delivered to citizens on July 2. We would run the citizen feedback session for 3
weeks. During that time, an on-line version of the survey would also be available for
completion by residents and Communications staff would undertake appropriate promotion
of the survey to the general public.
All feedback would be received by July 23, it can then be analyzed and prepared for
recommendations to Council in August. This time frame would still provide enough time for
Communications staff to revise the annual leaf collection communications plan to maximize
communications to citizens in the event that there are changes to the fall collection.
5. We have reviewed the potential for street sweeping in the evenings and have concluded that
since these units require significant maintenance to keep them on the road that running
them beyond the current 8 hours shifts. These units are required to be maintained every 8
hours, consequently, we would be required to acquire by rental agreement two new units for
$7500/month
the 8 week clean up programs in the spring and fall. The rental cost is for
$60,000/year
each unit; therefore the rental cost is .
6. The cost involved in distributing yard waste bags to residents for a bagged only leaf
$50,000 - $250,000
collection program ranges from for 100,000 – 500,000 bags
respectively. In speaking with one particular supplier, they would be able to provide a tractor
trailer load, 40 skids of 1800 (72,000 bags) at a time with the city logo. There may be
storage issues which will have to be resolved and also the decision made on how long we
would run this type of program should we choose to pursue this option.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS:
Option 1$500,000
provides for a re-direction of over to other operating activities relating to
road maintenance, construction, utility cuts and watercourse maintenance.
Option 2$400,000
provides for a re-direction of to other operating activities relating to road
maintenance, construction, utility cuts and watercourse maintenance.
Option 3
provides no cost reductions or containment as the program continues to rise and grow
as there are no operating parameters to it.
Option 4
(Alternative 2 in the chart above) provides some measure of cost containment and
certainty in the current 8 week program as there are parameters, schedules with do’s and don’ts
associated with it.
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Alternative 1
as identified in the chart above provides for a continued involvement in the leaf
collection program, however with a single collection and reduction to 4 weeks in duration the
$300,000
cost can be reduced to .
elimination of the leaf dumps
The initially and then in their entirety will provide an annual
$105,000
savings of that can be directed to other operating activities relating to road
maintenance, construction, utility cuts and watercourse maintenance.
ACKNOWLEDGED BY:
Pauline Houston, General Manager, Community Services Department
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