The Santa Rosa County board of commissioners and staff continue to work towards an acceptable agreement with Emerald Coast Utilities Authority (ECUA) to meet county residents’ demands for recyclable material pickup and processing. The board passed a tentative agreement at last month’s commission meeting, according to Hunter Walker, county administrator; Monday the board received a version updated by the ECUA attorney for review. “I don’t think it has changed from the version you had been given before, but we’re trying to staff that through,” Walker said to the commissioners. “We’d like to move as quickly as we could to get this agreement going and get the recyclables processed,” he said. Walker also said the ECUA Board of Commissioners resolved coming to Santa Rosa County to handle recyclables would be in their best interest. The two part step before the SRC board is to accept this resolution and current agreement, both available on the county commission’s website.
Walker said ECUA would be picking up from a pad at the SRC landfill, specially designated for transferring and transferred to their facility in Montgomery. A question remains as raised by the citizenry already having to do with whether somebody will pick up recyclables at citizens’ homes or if they will have to transport this material to the landfill themselves. Commissioner Bob Cole said recyclable pickup will go on in the south end of the county through the transportation franchise already in place. At the moment, he said north end citizens will still have to take their recycling to the landfill until the county makes an agreement with a company for transportation; current talks with ECUA have nothing to do with pick up of material at citizens’ homes, only from the transfer point at the landfill. He said a Request for Proposal (RFP) is still out for this opportunity. Cole also said there are currently no plans to stand up the recycling centers due to abuse.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: SRC BOCC reviewing recycling agreement