At the town hall meeting on Feb. 24, Orcas council members offered us two options for solid waste to be put on November’s ballot:

1) Close the solid waste facilities and force curbside pickup and recycling, or

2) Keep the solid waste facilities open as-is by imposing a parcel tax.

This is a risky way to approach the solid waste issue for several reasons.

A) San Juan Sanitation’s contract ends in 2012. That gives little time to look for alternatives if we want to contract with somebody else.

B) See #1 – too little time to look for a long-haul solution closer than Eastern Oregon.

C) This puts the power in the County’s hands rather than the people’s.

D) There is a third option that we’ve been telling the county we want for years: Keep existing facilities open, and help pay for that by reducing, reusing, and recycling.

This could mean privatization and forming a cooperative much like OPALCO. Members would pay a one-time membership fee, pay for services used, and vote in annual meetings. There are creative ways to solve the solid waste issue and the citizenry has the wherewithal to make it happen. We already know that we could stop hauling away things which would make soil. Imagine what else we could do together.

Last summer, a random survey was mailed out to about 1,000 people in the county. Regular independent audits of solid waste as part of the budget solution was overwhelmingly the top priority. (See exhibit 9).  Are those audits available to the public on the County website? If not, why? If we are going to come up with viable alternatives to solve our solid waste issues, we need these numbers for comparison.

Please read the survey to see if it reflects your goals and desires. Make your voices known through letters, emails, and by becoming a regular witnessing presence at meetings affecting solid waste and other important issues our county faces. We need the third option put on the ballot.

Here is the link to that survey: http://www.sanjuanco.com/Docs/CAgendadocs/08-30-2010/PowerPoint_SanJuanSolidWasteSurvey_083010.pdf

Sadie Bailey

Eastsound