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Executive Summary 1

Board of Directors 2

Administration 3

Solid Waste Transfer Stations 4

Accomplishments in 2003 5

What's Ahead in 2004 , 6

Public Information and Education Programs 7

Blaine County Resource Recovery Center 8

Financial Summary 9

Solid Waste Disposal Volumes & Costs by County 10

Annual Expenditures by County 11

Utility Dividend Allocations 12

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Page 1

Schultz, Director

The beginning of 2003 was marked with sorrow. Jeff Reimann passed away unexpectedly at work at the Ohio Gulch Transfer Station. Jeff embodied the best in all of us. He possessed a strong commitment to family and friends, exhibited an outstanding work ethic, and was a highly valued person in this organization. Efforts to improve the facilities and quality of ser­vice at Ohio Gulch are forever dedicated to Jeffs memory.

Construction work was started on another transfer station building at the Ohio Gulch facility and an improvement to the Carey Transfer Station. In cooperation with Blaine County, a site was also acquired in the West Magic area for a small transfer station, thus ending a six year search for a suitable location.

We were able to welcome back some old friends in 2003. Circle A Construction was awarded our waste transport contract and began hauling from our transfer stations in September. Circle A Construction was the first waste transport contractor hired for a five year period be­ginning in 1993.

Southern Idaho Solid Waste's household hazardous waste program kicked off in the spring of 2003. This project allows for the environmentally sound management of waste motor oil, paints, solvents, flammable liquids, antifreeze and lead acid/rechargeable batteries. This program and the quantities collected are more fully described later in this report.

Together with a hard-working group, we wrestled with sky-rocketing health care insurance costs. We forged a health insurance plan that significantly reduced costs. This plan, adopted after many months of research, discussion and negotiations, features a ten-fold in­creased deductible with the insurance company, an internal deductible buy-down, a pre-tax cafeteria plan, and a greater awareness of the basics of health insurance. I am especially proud of the effort and participation of the staff that worked on the creation of this health care plan.

Page 2

Southern Idaho Solid Waste is governed by a Board of Directors comprised of one Commissioner from each owner-county. The Board of Directors meets on a monthly

basis. Minutes from these meetings are available on request. SISW's current (2004) governing commissioners are:

MaryAnn Mix Jerry Nance 200 rst Avenue South 814 Highway 24

Hailey, ID 83333 Dietrich, 83324 208-788-5500 208-544-2480

Clay Handy Dan Stapelman

PO Box 876 60 North 850 West

Burley, ID 83318 Paul, ID 83347 208-438-5071 ext. 24 208-438-5894

Falls

Carolyn Elexpuru Gary Grindstaff

PO Box 466 PO Box 126

Gooding, ID 83330 Twin Falls, ID 83303

208-934-8355 208-736-4068

Veronica Lierman

35 South 150 West

Jerome,ID 83338

208-324-4206

Page3

The daily operation of Southern Idaho Solid Waste is administered by a professional

staff, headquartered at the Milner Butte Landfill. The current administrative staff

includes:

Executive Director

Administrative Assistant

Tom Facilities Engineer

Project Supervisor

The administrative staff may be contacted at the Milner Butte Landfill at the address and phone numbers

1050 West 400 South

PO Box 159 Burley, ID 83318

Phone: 208-432-9082

Fax: 208-432-6915 www.sisw.org

Page 4

Ohio Gulch Transfer Station 110 Ohio Gulch Road Phone: 208-788-2351 Manager: Daniel Krenz

Carey Transfer Station 1675 South 1800 East Phone: 208-823-4308 Manager: Gary Jacobowsky

Albion Transfer Station 760 South Highway 77 Phone: 208-673-6610 Manager: Pat Asher

Almo Transfer Station 2480 South Elba-Almo Road Phone: 208-638-5565 Manger: Harold Durfee

Malta Transfer Station 2450 East 1760 South Phone: 208-645-2675 Manager: Christie Donald

Oakley Transfer Station 985 South Worthington Phone: 208-677-7848 Manager: Earl Taylor

Wenden Transfer Station

2743 Highway 46 Phone: 208-536-2181 Manager: Gilbert Belasquez

County

The Gap Transfer Station

1178 Highway 25 Phone: 208-825-5421 Manager: Rick Erickson

County

Shoshone Transfer Station 120 North Highway 75 Phone: 208-420-5421 Manager: Todd Bollar

Minidoka

Minidoka Transfer Station

325 North 400 West Phone: 208-438-5593 Manager: Scott Tyler

Falls

Hub Butte Waste Disposal Site 2900 North 2800 East Phone: 208-734-5271 Manager: Rocky Dedmon

Twin Fans Transfer Station 2186 Orchard Avenue East

Phone: 208-734-3139 Manager: Frank Bennett

West End Transfer Station 4200 North 900 East-Buhl

Phone: 208-543-4054 Manager: Ron Crosby

Pages

constructton Two major construction projects were undertaken in 2003. The first, an expansion at

the Ohio Gulch Transfer Station in Blaine County, was completed in the fall. This new tipping area accommodates waste from construction and demolition activities in

the Wood River valley.

The second project, a new transfer station serving the West Magic area, is still in pro­gress. A site was selected and purchased, groundwork was done, and we are expect­

ing to begin construction of the transfer station in the of 2004. Addition of this new transfer allow more convenient and cost effective waste disposal for residents and visitors to this fast-growing area.

SISW's household hazardous waste program was implemented in 2003. The pro­gram, which collects motor oil, antifreeze, batteries of an kinds, paint and flammable liquids, was available at 10 sites throughout the district. News releases, advertise­ments, and informational booths at local home and garden shows and county fairs publicized the event, and helped to educate the on the proper use, storage and transport of these items. Since April, 1,620 lead acid batteries; 4,275 gallons of waste oil; 1,475 refrigeration units; 1,930 gallons of flammable liquids; 1,032 gallons of paint and 95 gallons of antifreeze were collected. This adds up to approximately 162,140 pounds of HHW that was diverted from the solid waste stream.

Institutfonal Recycling

The recycling program was expanded in 2003 to include the 13 of the Twin Falls School District. From April through December, the Twin Falls School District

recycled 21.8 tons of materials, and realized a savings of $1051 in disposal costs.

Inspection

July, two representatives from Idaho's Department of Environmental Quality in­

spected operations at the Milner Butte Landfill. These inspections are performed

every five years. The inspectors praised SISW, declaring that "The overall appear­

ance of the landfill operation is excellent." and that the landfill "is meeting all appli­

cable standards and regulations."

Page 6

Now that a site has been acquired and the Health Departments have approved design and operation plans, work will proceed in the development of a small transfer station in the West Magic area. This site should be in operation by late summer, 2004.

Southern Idaho Solid Waste is contracting with Power County, Elko County and a franchise operator in Camas County to provide solid waste hauling and disposal ser­vices. Two of these service agreements expire in 2005. It our goal to renegotiate and extend these service agreements this year.

The refinancing of the 1993 Certificates of Participation, which provided the re­sources to develop this solid waste system, has created additional opportunities to retire other debt early. The Board of Directors has placed a priority on capturing short-term debt retirement opportunities in order to better position SISW to flourish in an increasingly unstable and competitive environment.

The amount of clean wood waste that is being diverted from the solid waste stream is increasing each year. The piles of ground wood mulch are also growing. To find a stable market for 12,000 cubic yards of this material, a feasibility study win be under­taken in 2004 to identify the costs and benefits of converting wood mulch into a col­ored wood landscaping product. About 8,000 cubic yards of ground wood mulch will be allocated to a composting program operated by Stoker Dairies in the Burley area. This project is a collaborate effort to develop a value-added product made from wood waste.

Our goal is to increase the volume of hazardous and toxic wastes collected in this en­vironmentally-friendly project. We hope to achieve a 25% increase in the volume of paints, solvents, waste motor oil, batteries and refrigeration units recycled through this program. A computer recycling program will be offered again in Blaine County, and may be extended throughout the six remaining owner-counties if grant funding is received.

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website: www.sisw.org

2003 moved the Public Information and Education Programs in a new direction, starting with a new Recycling Coordinator. Robin Baumgartner joined SISWin January, with the goal of increasing SISW's public exposure through more face-to-face interaction with the commu­nity.

The major project tackled by the Public Education programs this year was the introduction of the household hazardous waste program. More than 2,500 brochures describing the new pro­gram were handed out in 2003, and press releases and newspaper advertisements also helped to spread the word. Byfar, the most effective means of advertising this program, however, were informational booths set up at the Cassia and Twin Fans County Fairs. These booths were visited by thousands of fairgoers, many of whom were not reached through traditional advertising sources.

Presentations on recycling and household hazardous waste issues were also given to high school students in the Gooding School District and the Twin Fans Kiwanis Club. Both groups had a lot of questions and ideas for improving our waste reduction and recycling programs in the coming years.

Another major accomplishment in 2003 was the implementation of a district-wide recycling program for the Twin Fans School District. Each of the 13 facilities in the district came up with an individualized recycling plan, and rolloff recycling containers were placed at 11 sites. The schools and SISW share the proceeds from the recycled materials equally. From the start of the program, in April, through December, the schools recycled more than 30 tons of materi­als, resulting in an avoided-cost savings of $1051.29.

Other activities included an informational booth at the Mini-Cassia Home & Garden Show, handing out household hazardous waste-related coloring books and pencils at the Magic Val­ley Man for Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween, an educational display at Ketchum's Earth Day celebration, working with an Eagle Scout candidate in Carey to collect HHW from the elderly and shut-ins, the second annual Blaine County computer recycling event, and two tire am­nesty days,

2004, we hope to continue our face-to-face interaction with the public, complete a retooling of the SISW website, further increase awareness of the HHW program, and revamp both the composting education and web-based waste exchange programs.

Page 8

Gelskey, Gulch

This year, the Blaine County Resource Recovery Center (BCRRC) was happy to see an increase of 8% in the volume of materials processed. This increase was a welcome change from the 5% decrease we had seen over the previous two years.

Increases in the volumes of both cardboard and newspaper were good news, as these two com­modities (along with aluminum cans) provide steady sources of revenue for the BCRRC In­creases were also seen in the amounts of glass and mixed paper collected, however, these ma­terials have little or no market

Net expenses once again outpaced revenues this year, despite the increased volume. This was due in part to sluggish markets for paper and metals, as well as increased freight costs. The value of the avoided cost of handling these materials as solid waste, however, yielded an over­all value of $12,955 to the citizens of Blaine County.

A pilot program collecting #1 and #2 plastic bottles for recycling was implemented in 2003.

This project, spearheaded by the Environmental Resource Center, brought in five additional tons of material over the past year, most of which was self-hauled to the recycling center by committed citizens. While the program had a rough start, with one batch of plastic needing to be thrown away due to extremely high contamination levels, continuing education and fre­quent monitoring of the plastics collected has helped to alleviate this problem.

For a second consecutive year, SISW partnered with the Idaho Department of Transportation to use crushed, recycled glass as fill in a road project in southern Blaine County. Because glass has little to no market value, and shipping the material to processors is prohibitively expen­sive, cooperative local projects like these are essential to continuing glass recycling in Blaine County.

2003 also saw a second successful computer recycling collection event. Just over 1.5 tons of computer equipment was collected, a nearly identical amount to last year's event totals. This shows Blaine County residents' continued commitment to recycling these and other materials.

Page 9

Southern Idaho Solid Waste's overall cost of managing solid wastes decreased in 2003.

While the overall reduction achieved this last year was less than 0.1%, the $8,000 annual sav­

ings continued the trend of reduced costs since 2001. A savings, however small, is still a sav­

ings. In an environment of cost increases for most, if not all utilities, this organization found a

way to reverse that pattern once again.

Four of the seven south-central Idaho counties who own SISW saw an average 4% decline

their annual expenses, which are expressed in terms of cost per ton. Blaine, Cassia, Lincoln

and Minidoka Counties were the primary beneficiaries from these reduced costs. Both Cassia

and Lincoln Counties were able to pass on savings in the form of reduced annual utility fees to

residents, businesses and farms in their respective counties.

In November, Southern Idaho Waste exercised its first opportunity to restructure its original debt, which provided for the initial development of this solid waste system in 1993.

By grasping this opportunity to refinance the remaining debt at a lower interest rate, we were

able to capture a savings of $2.5 minion in debt service expense. The $2.5 million in savings

win not be fully realized until 2011, since the goal of the Board of Directors was to apply the debt service savings to a reduction in the term or length of the financing,

Although cost savings in 2003 were small, these savings were achieved despite an expansion

of services by SISW. A new household hazardous waste program was launched this year, and

the scope of our public education program was increased without increasing our operating ex­penses.

2004, our fiscal focus and energies will be directed to further reducing our debt structure and to continue the trend of lowering overall operation costs.

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Page 10

20,378 35,200 30·3% $47.88

21,720 18,.037 18.8%

12,148 20·5% $37.91

18,703 15,886 14·8%

Lincoln 4,207 2,706 36·9%

15,671 23·8%

60,110 10.1%

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Solid Waste Volumes by County

[] Blaine

Cassia

o Gooding

D Jerome 11%J Lincoln

8%

Minidoka

Twin Falls

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Page 11

Annual Expenditures by County

o Blaine

o Cassia

o Gooding

o Jerome

o Lincoln

o Minidoka

Twin i

Blaine $508,047 $55,045 $69,980

Cassia $256,312 $208,671 $66,388 $14,000

Gooding $173,926 $266,826 $12,645 $22,890 $476,287

Jerome $228,850 $355,767 $10,972 $22,160 $617,749

$36,616 $116,309 $14,505 $7,190

$224,273 $297,613 $26,100

$860,738 $1,050,198 $0 $36,670

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2,770

0000

Page 12

The Board of Directors developed the criteria to allocate non-district revenues to the seven owner-counties based on a formula that each county would receive $10,000 plus a ratio of to­tal cost or expense for that county as compared to all other counties. The completion of the final budged provided those county ratios needed to compute the utility dividends.

Anticipating a total annual distribution of $300,000, the following chart shows the proposed quarterly dividend for each of Southern Idaho Solid Waste's owner counties.

Blaine $10,000 29·6% $68,080 $78,080

Cassia $10,000 8·7% $20,010

Gooding $10,000 7·8% $17,940

$10,000 9·9% $22,770

Lincoln $10,000 2·9% $6,670 $16,670

Minidoka $10,000 $21,620 $31,62 0

$10,000 31.7% $72,910 882,910

The total dividend for each county was distributed quarterly, beginning January, 2003.

- he Southern Idaho Regional Solid

Waste District (SISW) is a special purpose unit of local government whose sole mission is managing solid wastes for nine south-central Idaho counties and the northern parts of Elko County, Ne­vada and Box Elder County, Utah.

Our system features a state-of-the-art landfill that not only meets, but exceeds regulatory standards, 13 transfer stations, a waste transport system, a wide range of rural recycling opportunities, an effective waste diversion system, a public information and education network, and a safe and environmentally sound waste management system for problem wastes (I.e. petroleum contaminated soils, household haz­ardous wastes and liquid wastes).

This document is printed on recycled paper.