I thought maybe I had reached the end of the rainbow, yesterday, in Part Four of this editorial series, but then I attended the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners work session. I had heard that the commissioners had planned to discuss the problems at the County landfill… but had then canceled that discussion, saving it for a later date. The key conversation was going to focus on salary increases for the County employees.
Or so I thought.
In fact, the commissioners did discuss the proposed landfill fees with Road and Bridge Manager Kevin Pogue. Briefly. Mr. Pogue is also supervising the County landfill, at least for the time being, and seems to be taking that additional job seriously.
Mr. Pogue told the commissioners that he had ordered a scale to be installed at the landfill, to facilitate weighing the trash as it arrives at the landfill, and thereby allow the County to charge fees ‘by the ton’ rather than ‘by the cubic yard’. He expects the scale to arrive, and be installed, within the next couple of months, and recommended that the BOCC delay the revisions to the landfill fees until such time as the scale is operational.
The County had previously had a scale at the landfill, once upon a time, but someone determined that it was an unnecessary piece of equipment, and sold it. Or so we were told.
Following the meeting, I chatted briefly with Mr. Pogue, and he expressed an interest in hearing from the public — and in particular, from the commercial trash haulers — before a final decision is made on landfill fee increases.
Local activist Mozhdeh Bruss also engaged Mr. Pogue in a fairly lengthy conversation about the possibility of creating compost, in connection with various waste items normally dumped at the landfill.
Ms. Bruss is part of the Food Security, Food Equity coalition known as Healthy Archuleta. She quoted the statistic that about 40% of the food grown and produced in the U.S. ends up wasted, and ends up in landfills… but could instead be converted into compost suitable for gardening, farming, and ranching… if a system were put in place.
Is 40% a real statistic?
A quick search on the internet suggests that Americans are indeed throwing away a huge amount of food — most of which ends up in our landfills, where it decomposes and generates the greenhouse gas, methane. According to the website, Food Print:
America wastes roughly 40 percent of its food. Of the estimated 125 to 160 billion pounds of food that goes to waste every year, much of it is perfectly edible and nutritious. Food is lost or wasted for a variety of reasons: bad weather, processing problems, overproduction and unstable markets cause food loss long before it arrives in a grocery store, while overbuying, poor planning and confusion over labels and safety contribute to food waste at stores and in homes.
Food waste also has a staggering price tag, costing this country approximately $218 billion per year. Uneaten food also puts unneeded strain on the environment by wasting valuable resources like water and farmland. At a time when 12 percent of American households are food insecure, reducing food waste by just 15 percent could provide enough sustenance to feed more than 25 million people, annually…
According to reports, Americans often discard perfectly good, consumable food simply because they misunderstand expiration labels. Labels like “sell by”, “use by”, “expires on”, “best before” or “best by” are confusing to people — and in an effort to not risk the potential of a food-borne illness, they’ll toss it in the garbage.
How about our local situation? Do Archuleta County residents, restaurants, grocery stores, and visitors truly dump 40% of our food into the Archuleta County landfill? We really have no way of knowing.
Could our food waste become an element of a local compost industry? Very likely, if someone wanted to tackle such a massive project.
At the moment, Mr. Pogue and the Archuleta County government are dealing with an even larger problem, which is the apparent fact that the Archuleta County landfill will run out of space by 2026, according to recent statements by SEH geologist Julie Linn. Slowing down the flow of daily trash — through recycling, for example, and by composting certain materials — could postpone the ending date, but ultimately, the community will need to develop a new landfill. Or so it would appear.
Increasing landfill fees might slow down the flow, as well. But increased fees can also lead to people choosing to dump their trash out in the forest.
There are also ways to make the problem worse.
We could, for example, facilitate massive new housing developments, such as the 700-unit ‘Pagosa Views’ development proposed for wooded acreage adjacent to Pagosa Springs Elementary School. Such a project would generate many tons of construction debris, that could be dumped in our landfill. The landfill that, as mentioned, is running out of space.
The additional population, accommodated by new housing, would also be dumping food waste in the landfill, and could also put additional strain on the Town government’s municipal sewage pipeline.
We often hear that ‘economic growth’ is a good thing. We even have government-funded agencies working actively to promote ‘economic growth’.
Maybe what Pagosa needs is a few government-funded agencies whose purpose is to prevent too much growth?