The San Juan County solid waste manager Steve Alexander reports that the County has corrected all of the employee safety hazards that were identified during a Washington State Labor and Industries health and safety consultation visit at the San Juan Island Transfer Station in April. Documentation of the corrections has been submitted to the agency for approval.

The health and safety consultation report identified seven hazards, most involving the use of improper equipment or performing hazardous procedures. In an attempt to save money and reuse second-hand equipment staff was using ladders which customers had discarded at the transfer station.

“As we already know the transfer station is under-sized and not designed to handle current needs,” Alexander said. “In an effort to process ever-increasing amounts of solid waste – and provide timely service to customers – the staff found ways to work around the inadequacies. The consultant found that some of those workarounds compromised employee safety.”

Transfer station staff are now using proper replacement ladders and a safer, though slightly more time-consuming process to cover filled garbage trailers. In a move to increase safety for customers visiting the transfer station, staff will now also keep customers away from the tipping floor while it is being cleared and the garbage in the trailer compacted with the backhoe.

Alexander warns that the changes may result in longer wait times, especially during the summer months, but “We won’t sacrifice worker or customer safety in order to compensate for an inadequate facility.” The San Juan Island transfer station is scheduled to be replaced within the next few years. On April 28th the County Council voted to begin the process of locating a new, modern transfer station on property adjacent to the current operation. Alexander has estimated that once the new facility design phase begins it will take two to four years before that new facility is in operation.

Meanwhile Alexander notes that the County has submitted the application to have the existing San Juan Island transfer station covered by the required Industrial Stormwater Permit. That is being done to comply with an order issued late last April by the Washington Department of Ecology following an inspection in March. The new Permit will require that no “process water” enters stormwater at the transfer station (process water is any water which comes into contact with garbage or recycled materials at the transfer station). When the Permit is granted, the County will be required to perform frequent water quality monitoring, make operational changes, purchase water-tight containers and make some physical changes to the current site –including building a cover over the tripping floor and a process water collection and conveyance system; or drastically changing the character of the operation.

The County must be in total compliance with the requirements of the stormwater permit by next April.