San Juan County’s solid waste utility staff has started to review public comments on the Feb. 7 draft of the Solid Waste and Hazardous Waste Plan. Planner Elizabeth Anderson said that many of the early comments focus on the conversion from a primarily self-haul to a primarily route-based collection system on Orcas, Lopez and San Juan Islands.

County staff will accept comments until the council adopts the plan, but urges citizens to provide comments before March 16 to insure the content can be included in its first report to the council, which will be discussed Monday, March 19, and will continue at its March 20 regular session.

The plan document, with the council’s revisions, must be judged by the Department of Ecology before the county can formally adopt it. The target date for adoption is August of 2012.

Comments should be sent to Elizabeth Anderson, solid waste program planner, at P.O. Box 729 Friday Harbor, WA 98250 or by email elizabetha@sjcpublicworks.org or call 370-0531.