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·        This past Tuesday, the California Integrated Waste Management Board held its monthly meeting and dealt with the following tire-related issues:

1) It approved a grant award of $150,000 to the City of Monterey Park under the Targeted RAC Incentive Grant program.

2) It approved grant awards to 11 jurisdictions totaling $1,018,396 under the RAC Use Grant program.

Siskiyou County:  $250,000

City of Lake Forest:  $133,575

State Route 4 Bypass Authority:  $133,200

City of Indio:  $115,310

San Diego County:  $86,700

City of Encinitas:  $76,385

City of San Clemente:  $73,250

City of South Gate:  $69,681

City of Monrovia:  $32,080

City of Orange:  $25,500

City of Claremont:  $22,715

3) It approved grant awards 3 jurisdictions totaling $311,627 under the RAC Chip Seal Grant program.

City of National City:  $150,000

City of Napa:  $96,627

City of West Sacramento:  $65,000

4) It reallocated $250,000 from the Tire Fund to Kennec, Inc., the CIWMB’s contractor for Engineering Services Regarding Civil Engineering Applications Using Tire Derived Aggregate.

5) The Board held over a decision on approving a Scope of Work for a Public Awareness Campaign to Promote Sustainable Practices.  This would be for a 2-year $4.1 million contract to promote proper tire care and handling.  Ostensibly, the contractor would partner with one or more entities, such as the Rubber Manufacturers Association, to leverage the cost of a statewide campaign.  However, the Board felt that it needed more information on who those partnerships would be with and what the partnerships would entail.  It is expected that the item will be heard at next month’s meeting.

6) Finally, the Board reviewed the first draft of the Report to the Legislature Regarding the Waste Tire Recycling Management Program.  That report is due to the Legislature by July 10, 2008.  CIWMB staff suggested 8 options for the Board to consider.

Howard Levenson, Director of the Board's Sustainability Program, said that the latest information from the state budget office is that there will be approximately $52 million available for programs, not $58 million as previously reported.  Mr. Levenson said that staff will bring a final draft of the report to the Board in May.

Mr. Levenson then went through the 8 options and asked Board Members for feedback on each.

1) Reduce tire size, increasing tipping fees, phasing out or eliminating disposal of tires at landfills and monofills.

Board Member Gary Petersen said that his concern about the proposal is the amount of energy and labor that would go into reducing the size of tire shreds.  He said that the proposal didn’t make sense in light of the state’s efforts to reduce energy.  Other Board Members agreed and removed this option from the report.

2) Expand public education and outreach on tire sustainability/inflation.

Mr. Levenson said that staff suggests increasing the number of years for the program from two to four years at $5 million annually.

Board Chair Margo Reid Brown said that she wouldn’t support such a proposal.  She said that she supported a four-year program, but not at $5 million per year.  She wondered why the Board would need $20 million for the program if it was leveraging its funds with other entities.  Board Member Rosalie Mulé agreed.  She also wanted assurance that there would be before and after surveys to measure the success of the public education program.  Mr. Meyers said that such surveys are a part of the Board’s public education campaigns.

Jon Meyers of the Board’s Public Information Office said that he would make the partnership proposals clearer for the CIWMB.  Ms. Mulé said that she would like to see what the campaign would cost and what the contributions of the other partners would be.  Ms. Reid Brown said she felt that market development was more important, although she recognized the part that a public outreach program could play in the effort.

Board Member Cheryl Peace said that she would advocate putting money into a quiet roads campaign for asphalt rubber, such as they have in Arizona.

Ms. Reid Brown said that with the Board feedback she is returning the proposal to staff for modifications.

3) Evaluate modifications to tire storage requirements.

Mr. Levenson said that the modifications for TDA tire storage requirements should be done carefully.  He mentioned that stakeholders had questioned whether there were contractual conditions.  He said that if the Board wants staff to develop more specific proposals, then staff would build in health and safety considerations. 

4) Establish new equipment loan program. 

Mr. Levenson said that a proposal to reimburse sales taxes for equipment purchases could run into a problem identified by the Board’s legal counsel.  However, if a grant that partially reimbursed a company for an equipment purchase didn’t mention sales tax (dealing with “another public entity”), then the problem could be overcome.

5) Increase TDA/Civil Engineering efforts.

This proposal went unchanged from when the option was first presented to the Board.  It would increase financial support for civil engineering contracts (that provide oversight of projects using TDA), research new applications for TDA and offer a grant program for local governments to use TDA in civil engineering projects.

6) Refocus and expand RAC grant programs.

CIWMB staff wanted to assure stakeholders that this proposal, which would combine the three RAC grant programs (Targeted RAC Incentive, RAC Use, and RAC Chip Seal), would not mix their funding.  Earlier, some stakeholders had voiced concern that jurisdictions would spend their grant money mostly on RAC Chip Seal grants which use less crumb rubber per ton than the asphalt rubber programs.

7) Expand or shift TDP Grant program.

Mr. Levenson said that staff suggests increasing the amount for this grant program by $2 million annually because of local government demand.

8) Re-evaluate TDF efforts.

Mr. Levenson said that staff suggests that this item be modified to indicate a need to look at the greenhouse gas impacts of TDF (currently, state agencies are prohibited from researching issues dealing with TDF).

Board Members and stakeholders then made comments about the report. 

Board Members Wesley Chesbro and Gary Petersen said that the overall thrust of the report should be to show the Legislature that the Board is intent on spending Tire Fund monies focusing on market development for TDPs.

Doug Carlson of the Rubber Pavements Association addressed the Board.  He made a pitch to increase the grant awards under the RAC Use Grant program to $10 per ton of RAC used (from the current $5 per ton).  He pointed out that a key reason to increase the grants is because asphalt prices have increased significantly since 2005 because they follow the price of oil.

Mr. Carlson said that the RPA estimates that about 6 million PTEs went into RAC projects in California in 2007.  He said that the large amount of RAC projects was due, in part, to the CIWMB’s grants.

He also suggested that the Board look to expanding RAC grants for commercial (non-governmental) entities—where private development roads often become the responsibility of cities and counties.  Additionally, he said new technologies allow RAC to be used effectively in parking lots.

Terry Leveille of TL & Associates addressed the Board.  He said that it made sense eliminate the requirement that tire shreds be processed into smaller sizes before they could be landfilled because of the energy costs involved.  Secondly, he said that landfilling of tires is no longer a cheap option in California.  Azusa Land Reclamation raised its tipping fees last year and it is no longer an inexpensive disposal option.

Mr. Leveille said that there are many avenues of public education and outreach that can be tapped beyond the usual public works people and city councils.  He said that the private sector, such as the contractors, builders, and architects, need to be exposed to the benefits of RAC and TDA as well as other TDPs.

He said that a proposal modifying tire storage requirements for TDA would be tricky, especially if it requires bagging the product.  TDA is not like crumb rubber that can be stored in supersacks.  To even entertain loosening storage requirements for TDA requires more TDA projects.  Once that happens, there might be a rationale for temporary storage of a limited amount of TDA that has already been “sold” for a specific project.  Right now crumb rubber is the only product that has an exemption from California’s waste tire storage regulations.  Other bagged and sold TDPs, such as landscape mulch, shouldn’t count against a firm’s storage permits, but this is something that can be dealt with anytime and probably isn’t appropriate for the LAO report.

As for an equipment loan program, Mr. Leveille wondered if an RMDZ-type program with TDA as a priority might run into some difficulties.  He said that one of the requirements for an RMDZ loan is that you have to have a product that is in demand.  That might be questionable for TDA since there are so few projects.  Instead, Mr. Leveille suggested that another proposal—a CIWMB grant program that would pay the sales tax cost for equipment—might make sense.  He suggested that since sales tax is usually 7% or 8%—depending on the county it was purchased—that a grant program paying maybe 10% of the cost of the equipment would allow the company to cover the equipment’s state and local sales tax.  To get around the issue raised by CIWMB legal counsel, he suggested that the program simply not mention sales tax, just provide a small grant to offset the cost of the sales tax.

Mr. Leveille said that combining the RAC grant programs makes administrative sense.  Keeping the funding separate keeps the Chip Seal Grant program—which uses less crumb rubber per ton—from “hogging” all of the funds.

As for the TDF prohibition, Mr. Leveille said that the Board should stay away from trying to get the Legislature to allow funding for TDF ventures.  However, he said that the Legislature should not prohibit research or studies to ascertain if TDF is a better, more environmentally-sound fuel than coal or petroleum coke (the common fuels used by cement plants and cogeneration facilities).  Certainly, he said, if the Board wants to conduct a lifecycle analysis of different modes of tire usage, it cannot ignore TDF.

Mr. Petersen said that the Board should get more involved in the construction industry, particularly the U.S. Green Building Council.  He said that they should put together some standards for the use of TDPs in green buildings and give that option to the private sector.

George Larson, representing Waste Management, said that the Board has substantially addressed all the concerns the company raised.

Barry Takallou of CRM Company addressed the Board.  He said that Wal-Mart, which generates about 1 million waste tires annually in California, has a policy that none of those tires is to be landfilled.  After giving some examples of corporate commitment to closing the loop with scrap tires, Mr. Takallou said many in the private sector are responding to the challenges of the scrap tire wastestream and not necessarily waiting for programs.

Mr. Chesbro wondered if the added $2 million in funding for the TDP grant program was sufficient.  He also suggested that the report might mention the California-Baja California border strategy, and the work that the CIWMB proposes to entertain in order to combat the problem there.

Mr. Levenson said there would be a section summarizing border issues in the report.  He also said that CIWMB staff would adapt the next draft of the LAO report to reflect the comments from today’s meeting.

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The above is a recent issue of the California Tire Report.  To receive complete stories via fax or e-mail twice weekly, click subscription information.

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