(from Sandy Bishop)

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your support and to the many of you who stood at De Dump and the Saturday Market and LVM and passed out survey information. For Ann, whose IT support made the survey possible, the library for collecting and making surveys available.  Also, to those who attended our many meetings, notified and cajoled neighbors and friends to fill out the surveys and to those who have been working on this issue for the past decade.  

This is our moment.  We have momentum and a window of opportunity to do this.  The Port appointed citizens committee is an extraordinary group of people and it has been an honor to work with such diligent and working people.  We have completed Phase I of our report.  Postings can be found on the Resources and  Reference page of this site.

Let’s succeed together.  

MEETING: This coming Tuesday, July 12 at 7 p.m. at the Community Center the Port of Lopez (PoL) will hold a public meeting.  It is very important that you show up and make known your support for the PoL going forward with a plan for our locally controlled SWAP (Solid Waste Alternatives Project) facility.  The survey results will be shown.

CELEBRATION: Some creative Lopezians will be bringing dump creations to display.  Clothing, art and other items of interest.  If you have something of interest to display please bring it.  This is a self organizing event so come a little early and set up either outside or in the side room.  

Patty Ward's tile mosaic from "found tile"

See the attached photo of Patty W.’s tile mosaic from ‘found’ tile for a sampling of what can be done with ‘throw aways’.  

Also, please bring some finger foods (sweet or savory) to share.  We want to celebrate having gotten this far along in the process towards a successful program for local control.  Two key ingredients besides hard work and determination are CREATIVITY and CELEBRATION.  

FINAL SURVEY RESULTS: The survey results will be posted on this site on the Resources and Reference page and on the PoL website http://www.portoflopez.com/.

Our final report is also there.  Please read through it to understand more.  

Based on 750 respondents 

Funding a locally managed program through a combination of garbage revenues, voluntary memberships and property taxes appears to be the most popular idea supported in the survey.

Overview of respondents. 75.8% of respondents are full time Lopezians and 85.9% pay property taxes. 78.6% vote in San Juan County.  Household incomes: 17.9% earn $24,000 or less; 28.9% earn between $24,000 – $48,000; $23.7% earn between $48,000 – $75,000 and $29.4% of households earn over $75,000.  It is important to note that earnings are split fairly evenly among the four categories but survey results show that proposed solutions don’t tend to be based along lines of income.

Back into the system. Of the 750 respondents 15% said they currently take their garbage off island. 2% reported using curbside pickup.   When asked what would bring people back into the system 46.5% responded that self-separated recycling was an important factor.  Local control and a combined factor sound fiscal management and other changes were nearly equally important.

Local control. 74% noted (strongly and somewhat agree) that if local control was not a part of the solution they would not vote for a county ballot measure.  In the event of local control, 81.4% reported they would pay an annual tax of at least $50 and 64.6% of at least $100. 7.9% reported favoring no tax.  When the question was asked about paying taxes with no local control, 33.9% reported they would pay nothing. 73.6% reported they would pay between $0 and $50 annually. 

Local management. 85.4% of respondents either strongly or somewhat agree with either the PoL or another local entity managing the Lopez facility.  62% either strongly or somewhat agree with PoL managing the facility.  30.1% have no opinion.  7.9% either somewhat disagree or strongly disagree with PoL involvement.

Payment methods. 75.2% would like the per can rate to be lower and free recycling and use of Neil’s Mall through revenue from a property tax.  A nearly equal number (72.8%) favor a membership based organization fee. 63,5% favor a mix of fees and taxes.

When it comes to using PoL existing funds 54.7% either strongly agree or somewhat agree with using some of those funds for the SWAP operations. 29.8 % have no opinion.

59.2% (397) of respondents would join at a level of $25 annual dues if memberships were available and 25.8% (173) would join at the $100 annual fee level. If memberships were offered 85% would join at least at the $25 per year level.

Survey usefulness.  There is a sense from reading the comments and based on the sheer number of respondents during a three week period, that the Lopez facility is more than a place to dump recycling and garbage.  It is a local icon and the PoL will need to keep this in mind when making decisions and setting policy.

From Sandy Bishop:

19 days after posting the survey we have received 750 responses.  By all accounts this is a record number of responses in a very short period of time.  

De Dump is a local icon and an important community utility – that much is for certain. 

Tomorrow, Friday July 8th the citizens committee will issue our Phase I report.  Our meeting is from 4-6 p.m. at the Library.  

An important date for our Lopez community is: July 12 at 7 p.m. at the Community Center for the Port of Lopez meeting.  This will be a historic gathering and one that will likely be a firm and bold step towards local Lopez control of our recycle and garbage facility.

Please join us, hear the results of the survey, get an update from the citizens committee and Port commissioners.  

Thank you everyone for caring and for helping to shape our community future – As Neil Hanson said, “There is a fundamental difference of philosophy from current county management and SWAP.  County management views garbage as a necessary commodity and primary revenue source, and limits recycling to a narrow list of mixed unlike materials, which often destroys their value.  This is abundant evidence that the Lopez community views this approach as a design failure in our disposal system.  Lopezians favor, instead a zero waste – or darn near – approach. This means encouraging the redesign of resource life cycles so that all products are reused and any trash sent to landfills is minimal.  We suspect that waste is a resource in disguise.  Time will tell. ”  

See you all on the 12th at 7 pm at the community center.

We have received over 650 responses so far, but we still want to collect at least 1000. If you haven’t done it yet, please fill out the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LopezSolidWaste. If you have, please encourage your friends, neighbors, island visitors – anyone who spends time on Lopez Island – to fill it out, too. Paper copies are available at the library.

Thank you so much for your participation!

The CAC

The Citizens Advisory Committee, appointed by the Port of Lopez,
are planning a meeting at the Community Center:

Thursday June 30th, 5:15 -6:30 PM, look for the postings on lopezrocks.org and LCCA calendars.

The meeting will have interactive powerpoint presentation, information about the future of our Dump. Please come and express your opinions!

Information about our survey, and paper copies are available at the Saturday Market, the Library and passed out at the Dump.

Time is of an essence, we need the surveys completed before July 5th.

For the first time in years the San Juan County Council is seriously tackling the issue of Solid Waste. They are considering various options for managing the system. Currently, there is a subcommittee of the County Council (Jamie Stephens, Patty Miller and Rich Peterson) evaluating maintaining the current level of service on all the Islands. We commend the subcommittee for their hard work in trying to craft a solution for this problem. This is a problem they have inherited, which has resulted from years of poor management. However, the subcommittee proposal may be too much and too late, without some substantial changes to the approach incorporated in the financial model and projections that are being made.

Read this document to see what the CAC recommends: Message to the County Council.

(by John Ryan)

Solid Waste Alternatives Project – SWAP
Please let us know what you think! An on line survey is available at
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LopezSolidWaste

This year is a critical year for deciding the fate of solid waste in our county. Decisions made by the County Council will affect Lopez. The Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) appointed by the Port of Lopez is working diligently to protect the interests of Lopezians and upgrade customer service at our facility.

At its regular meeting on June 3, the Citizen Advisory Committee approved a memo to the community outlining solid waste options for community discussion (Download PDF now). All members of the Lopez community are invited to read it and comment. The memo provides background on the practicalities of garbage and recycling on the island and proposes three alternative ways of funding a locally controlled solid waste system:
■Option 1: A traditional garbage-driven model
■Option 2: Funding through taxes
■Option 3: Voluntary funding by users

Before July 5 we would like to get at least 1,200 responses to this questionnaire. Please pass this on to your neighbors and friends. Paper copies are also available for people who do not regularly use computers. Please drop by the Lopez Library to pick up paper copies. Paper copies may be mailed to:
Port of Lopez
PO Box 907
Lopez Island, WA 98261

(by John Ryan)

After meeting with members of County Council and further discussions with many people, the Citizen Advisory Committee has revised the  memo to the community outlining solid waste options for community discussion. All members of the Lopez community are invited to read it and comment.

The memo provides background on the the practicalities of garbage and recycling on the island and proposes three alternative ways of funding a locally controlled solid waste system:

• Option 1: A traditional garbage-driven model
• Option 2: Funding through taxes
• Option 3: Voluntary funding by users

We invite your feed back!

This is to let everyone know that there will be several meetings of the Port of Lopez CAC this week.

Monday – 11:45am to 1pm. Discussion with Neil about some of his ideas/proposals for SWAP (the new concept for the transfer station). The location is TBD, so please look for additional comments on this posting that will provide meeting times. The likely meeting place will be the Lopez Community Land Trust Office on Lopez Road.

Thursday – 5:15pm to 6:00pm. Special meeting of the Port at a location to be announced. As mentioned, this will be a Port special meeting, so look for confirmation of time and meeting place at the Port website (http://www.portoflopez.com/). The intent of the meeting is to enable the Port commissioners to have a joint session with the CAC.

Friday – 4:00pm to 6:00pm. Regular weekly meeting of the CAC at the Lopez Library meeting room.

(from Ed Kilduff)

Here is the agenda for today’s meeting at the library. Please feel free to join us!

At its regular meeting on June 3, the Citizen Advisory Committee approved a memo to the community outlining solid waste options for community discussion. All members of the Lopez community are invited to read it and comment.

The memo provides background on the the practicalities of garbage and recycling on the island and proposes three alternative ways of funding a locally controlled solid waste system:

• Option 1: A traditional garbage-driven model
• Option 2: Funding through taxes
• Option 3: Voluntary funding by users

We invite your feed back!