Chief
12-21-2007, 05:14 AM
http://wweek.com/editorial/3406/10142/
BY NIGEL JAQUISS
[December 19th, 2007]
A ticked-off tribe and a delicate union negotiation could stop Metro from picking the most fuel-efficient option on a massive upcoming garbage-hauling contract.
Metro is responsible for managing the region’s solid waste stream, and under a $9.8 million annual contract—in effect since 1989—it sends more than a half-million tons of trash a year 150 miles up the Columbia River Gorge to a landfill in Arlington, Ore.
The trash currently travels by truck. Every week, according to Metro, more than 350 tractor-trailer loads, each carrying about 31 tons of trash, roll up I-84 to the Arlington dump. After a Jan. 10 Metro Council hearing, the agency expects to invite interested parties to bid on a new 10-year contract starting in January 2010. That contract could be worth up to $150 million, or as much as $15 million a year, according to Mike Hoglund, Metro’s solid waste director.
There are three possible modes of transportation for the trash: truck, train and barge. As oil approaches $100 a barrel, the question of fuel consumption looms large. Metro’s use of trucks—by far the least fuel efficient of the three modes, according to an engineering study done for Metro earlier this year—already makes it unusual in the Gorge garbage game. Seattle sends its trash to the Gorge by train. And Vancouver, Wash., barges its waste up the Columbia.
**SCHNIPP**
Interesting and informative story about our local waste stream, and the challenges of getting it moved efficiently.
BY NIGEL JAQUISS
[December 19th, 2007]
A ticked-off tribe and a delicate union negotiation could stop Metro from picking the most fuel-efficient option on a massive upcoming garbage-hauling contract.
Metro is responsible for managing the region’s solid waste stream, and under a $9.8 million annual contract—in effect since 1989—it sends more than a half-million tons of trash a year 150 miles up the Columbia River Gorge to a landfill in Arlington, Ore.
The trash currently travels by truck. Every week, according to Metro, more than 350 tractor-trailer loads, each carrying about 31 tons of trash, roll up I-84 to the Arlington dump. After a Jan. 10 Metro Council hearing, the agency expects to invite interested parties to bid on a new 10-year contract starting in January 2010. That contract could be worth up to $150 million, or as much as $15 million a year, according to Mike Hoglund, Metro’s solid waste director.
There are three possible modes of transportation for the trash: truck, train and barge. As oil approaches $100 a barrel, the question of fuel consumption looms large. Metro’s use of trucks—by far the least fuel efficient of the three modes, according to an engineering study done for Metro earlier this year—already makes it unusual in the Gorge garbage game. Seattle sends its trash to the Gorge by train. And Vancouver, Wash., barges its waste up the Columbia.
**SCHNIPP**
Interesting and informative story about our local waste stream, and the challenges of getting it moved efficiently.