Plastic Blocks
This is a shot I took through their live cam of the ByFusion operation at their facility in Gardena, California. To the great relief of my staff and the city manager, ByFusion convinced me that I can’t fit a Blocker machine in the Ward 6 garage. But we are beginning a pilot program here at the ward office that builds on the glass recycling/reuse program already in place.
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I’ve written in the past that we pay Republic Services over $360,000 annually for contamination fees out at the material recycle facility (MRF.) One clear goal in this pilot is to reduce those costs by keeping non-recyclable plastic out of the MRF. But if the result of the pilot is simply people using our new Plastics Only dumpster to toss garbage in, then we’re not going to be able to do the project. Reducing contamination at the MRF also has to be making sure what we send to ByFusion to be made into blocks also is not contaminated. When you bring your plastics here, please DO NOT also assume we’re after anything that belongs in the blue bin. No cardboard, no cans, no recyclable plastic – just the non-recyclable plastics.
So right now, many of you are wondering what kinds of plastic are we after. Plastics are rated for their recyclability. Republic wants the #’s 1 and 2. We want the #’s 3 through 7. This chart gives a description. Look on the bottom of the container and look for the number if you have any question.
We want your plastic bags that do not belong in the blue bin. We want your bubble wrap. We want your plastic forks and spoons, yogurt containers, and the wrapping that goes around the meat you buy. We want your Saran Wrap and plastic tubs from frozen food. You do not need to wash it out – but please bag up what you bring and toss it into the Plastics Only bin that is now the first thing you see when you drive in behind the ward office. Bag it up and bring us all this stuff:
NO Styrofoam. The question has been asked. Please do not bag up and bring us styrofoam. It’s not what we’re after in this pilot.
There are several partners in this project. Tanks Green & Clean is a local company that puts construction waste to new uses. They’ll be taking our plastic and baling it into bundles for shipping. They do not have the ability or desire to have plastic cups blowing around their yard so we must have you bag what you bring. I’m grateful to Jason Tankersley for his interest in participating.
Our city's environmental services team is loaning us the roll off and will be transporting it out to Tank’s when it’s full. How often that happens will of course depend on how quickly you fill it up. The roll off is the same size as the one many of you have been putting bottles in – but the volume of the plastic is greater so I’m expecting E.S. will be doing some regular road trips out to Tank’s.
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Of course, ByFusion is a partner. When we have enough plastic baled and ready for shipment, they’ll work with us on getting a truck here to make that haul. A regular semi will hold roughly 20 tons of baled plastic. One ton will yield about 1,500 blocks. It’d be more but their experience is people toss contaminants into the plastic bags and that must be sorted and removed. That increases the costs and decreases the yield. It’s why I’m asking that you really monitor what you put into the plastic bag you bring over. While there’s a clear environmental piece to this, there’s also an economic side to it. At the end of the pilot, we’ll all put our heads together to see if continuing makes sense, and what the real costs vs benefits are. Contamination in the bags you bring can kill this drill.
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So, what’s the point of all this? I’ve written about the bench we just installed in San Gabriel. There’s a trash dumpster enclosure that’ll soon start out at the El Pueblo Center. We’ve got benches programmed for other parks. They’re all being built using the blocks we’ll be getting shipped back to us from ByFusion. We collect the plastic, send it to Tank for baling, truck it to ByFusion for blocking and they send us back blocks. The blocker machine I showed above can run between 1 and 2 tons of plastic through per day. So, our goal is to keep that machine busy and get blocks back here for local projects.
Depending on the public participation, the product will be more readily available than concrete or lumber, and it is easier to build with and saves costs. And it keeps the non-recyclable plastic out of the landfill.
I was disappointed to learn that we’ve had to shut down a couple of the glass recycle bins that were located out on the east side. People were simply dumping garbage into the bins and defeating the purpose of the project. It’d be a shame if people didn’t respect the Plastic Only bin we’re using for this pilot. If it just becomes a dump site, we won’t be able to test the program. So please – if you need a bag, ask us and we’ll give you what you need. Fill it with the non-recyclable plastics, seal it and toss it into the bin. We’ll do the rest. My hope is by the end of the year we’ll have shown the community wants this, is a good partner and not tossing junk into the bin, and that we can demonstrate the economic value of the program. The environmental value is clear.
So now there are 3 bins behind the Ward 6 office; one for Plastic Only, one for glass only and the other is for cardboard – most often the cardboard boxes people use to haul over their glass. None of them are for peoples’ household waste. Adding the plastics bin ups the ante for how the ward property is being used so we’re really asking that you self-monitor and remind others (gently) if you see them tossing the wrong things into any of the bins.
Water Supply and PFAS
We had a 2-hour information-packed meeting last Thursday evening where Tucson Water, the Air Force, ADEQ and our city attorney’s office made presentations on the PFAS concerns I often write about. In fact, during last fall’s campaign I called PFAS the #1, 2 and 3 most important issues for the region. With that as background I was a bit surprised to say the least to have some guy who had sat through the meeting email me on Friday morning saying I was complicit along with Tucson Water in trying to hide the PFAS problem.
For well over 3 years, I’ve been writing about the DOD complicity in dumping PFAS-tainted firefighting foam (AFFF) into the sewer system, hosing it into the soil and slow walking the clean-up process. And for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been tying PFAS and the new EPA health standards to the new Interior Department concerns over the Colorado River. Thursday’s meeting simply built on all that history.
It wasn’t until 2016 that the USAF began to transition off from the AFFF that was the cause of the contamination. On Thursday one of the DOD representatives said the new style AFFF doesn’t contain PFAS. In fact, it does, but with a different molecular structure than the original stuff. Some argue the new brand is safe. From a science perspective that is not nearly a universally accepted position. Also, on Thursday the DOD said they have not yet been given direction from the chain of command to adopt the new EPA health advisory standards. So, the Air Force is still relying on the previous 70 parts per trillion benchmarks for acting despite the fact that the EPA lowered that to virtually zero. That was some troubling news that came from the meeting. The separation of powers should not also mean each branch gets to write their own rules.
There was one piece of good news. The current process the DOD uses is called CERCLA. Everything is an acronym. That one stands for Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. It’s a rather long and drawn-out series of studies, evaluations eventually leading to some discussions about responsibility and who’s paying what to get an environmental problem resolved. The current game plan DOD is following puts them near the end of that in 2024. That doesn’t mean the problem is solved in 2024, only that by then the parties will have identified the extent of the problem and will begin working on the remediation and payment piece. On Thursday the USAF PFAS representative for the first time announced that they have the liberty to by-pass the normal CERCLA process when conditions in a given locale warrant that. I asked if the increasingly dire conditions on the Colorado River and our need to rely on our groundwater more quickly would allow us to jump the normal process. In normal military guarded code, she said ‘yes, maybe.’ I’ll take it.
There are several funding sources making their way through congress. The DOD identified over $500M that they’ve already received and are investing in this problem – nationwide, not just in Tucson. And they shared this graph showing anticipated additional funding.
Clearly that amount of money will not fully solve the PFAS issue across the nation, but seeing the issue being reviewed with this level of magnitude shows the feds are finally acting to get the actual remediation taken care of.
We are 1 among a couple of hundred cities who are a party to the 3M litigation. That process was supposed to have advanced early in the year, but COVID hit some of the participants and slowed things down. The discovery phase should resume soon.
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has been an excellent partner in showing the DOD that they’re not bound up by all the CERCLA rules. They see the problem threatening our central well field and they’re investing money along with us in putting in test treatment wells. If you go by Randolph golf course on the Broadway side, you’ll see some drilling going on. It’s a part of our trying to identify the extent of the plume. So, there’s a lot of activity on this issue. I’ll keep as much on top of it as possible and contrary to the guy who wrote on Friday, I won’t be hiding any of this from you.
Becton Dickenson
On another environmental note, in February I had asked for an update on the Becton Dickenson manufacturing plant that’s under design out on the east side. This is the business that wants to open shop out by the DM runway. They’ll be sterilizing medical equipment using a product called Ethylene Oxide (EO.) That product is highly flammable, and it’s highly toxic. The purpose of my study session item was to stop the project unless they can demonstrate a few things – one is a traffic plan that assures the public is protected, and the other is assuring TFD can contain a catastrophic event related to an EO release. This is an item the Air Force and I agree on. They don’t want this manufacturing plant anywhere close to the runway out at DM.
The traffic concern was having Becton Dickenson (BD) identify a route they’d use to transport EO to their facility that assured the public was protected from a rollover or any release of their product. And given the toxicity of EO, the TFD item was simply to demonstrate that our fire department wouldn’t even by on the site of a large release before the plume was already impacting people in the area. Impacting them with potential life-threatening results. The M&C unanimously approved this motion of mine:
That the city sends a letter to BD stating that unless and until they can provide a risk assessment demonstrating that TFD has the capacity to control a catastrophic event, they are not welcome in this city. Also, to have staff petition the USDOT to allow us to impose local regulations for the release of Ethylene Oxide
We haven’t seen anything from the USDOT related to our ability to implement local regulations related to the release of EO. So, the project moved along, with assurances from BD that they plan on being good neighbors.
One of the points I raised about the BD operation is that they plan on using up to 450,000 pounds of EO on an annual basis. That means transportation and storage of huge amounts of the toxic chemical. As a part of their building design BD has requested two variances, both of which are related to storing EO. One had to do with reducing the minimum required exterior wall area that’s called out for storing hazardous chemicals. The other was to increase the maximum amount of EO to be stored on site. So, they wanted to reduce the size of the storage area while increasing the amount of EO being stored. To their great credit, our planning staff rejected both requests for variance based on application of International Building Code provisions related to safety and health.
BD will continue with their design efforts. If this is any indication of the kind of ‘good neighbor’ they intend to be it should come as a huge red flag for our plan reviewers, Tucson Fire, and the county. It continues to be my belief that we should not allow this facility to be built in city limits, and certainly not right next to a runway that’s used for aircraft carrying live weaponry.
Aphasia
You’ll recognize this couple. It’s pre-January 8th, 2011. So much has happened in all our lives since then. Sadly, not much at all in terms of gun law sanity. Lots of other changes.
For Gabby the time has been spent rehabilitating. The Loft opened the documentary on that whole process with the film Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down. You can order tickets at this link: www.loftcinema.org.
I wrote a bit about this last week, but now that the show is open to the public I want to circle back and remind you of what the show is supporting. Certainly, one aspect of it is to call out the need for gun law reform in this country. I’m writing this on Friday evening. By the time you read it around 72 hours from now we’ll have killed another 1,000 people due to gun violence in the U.S. I suspect none of those will be due to a good guy with a gun shooting a bad guy with a gun. The number is stunning.
The other area that’s benefitting from the film is the work being done by Friends of Aphasia. In Pima County there are roughly 6,000 people who are living with aphasia. Gabby is one of them. You know hers was the result of blunt trauma. That’s also true of former Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry. Both are making amazing progress in their respective rehab programs. Of course, we at the Ward 6 office wish them both the absolute best in their recoveries.
But blunt trauma accounts for the minority of cases. Aphasia is a condition in which a person’s ability to speak, understand speech, or to understand written language is compromised. Most cases are the result of strokes. Other causes are brain tumors, infections caused by surgery and in my brother’s case it’s what’s called ‘Primary Progressive Aphasia.’ That’s the condition where communication skills decline over time due to brain degeneration. Many of you saw Pete doing his presentation on stop-motion filming at the Loft. Today he can’t understand what’s happening on a movie screen.
Friends of Aphasia is a local group that’s working with families of people struggling with the condition. I invite you to check out their work at www.friendsofaphasia.com. They’ve got some outreach events in the works that I hope to be involved with. Many of you know someone who is working through this condition. If you don’t, you will. Check out Friends’ work and see if you can help in some way.
TEP Special Exception Process
Last week we adopted changes to our development code that directs TEP through a public process when they want to install new utility lines on our scenic or gateway corridors. The Star ran a nicely written article on it – but the headline was way off base. It read “Exceptions allowing for massive power lines in Tucson approved.” If you only read the headline, you walked away not at all understanding what we approved.
First, it’s important to point out the option that exists for TEP to request a variance right now. Some people who haven’t been tracking this feel the city just gave TEP carte blanch to overground their poles. That’s not true. Prior to our vote TEP has always had the Board of Adjustment to appeal for a variance. The public can speak to the board during the variance meetings, but if there’s an appeal of that decision it goes to Superior Court, not to M&C.
What we did last week was to place a process ahead of the Board of Adjustment that TEP will now have to navigate when asking for a variance from our undergrounding ordinances. That process is called Special Exception. The first step is for TEP to hold a neighborhood meeting with residents in the area around where they’re asking for the variance. They consider that input and move onto the next step – a zoning examiner public hearing. At that hearing the public can speak – everybody is under oath – and the zoning examiner hears all sides before making a ruling. That ruling can be appealed by any interested party to the M&C. Appeals to us also involve a public hearing, and we take a final vote. Going to the Board of Adjustment is still an option for TEP, but they have to go through the Special Exception process first, and all of those records are then in front of the board when they make a ruling. The members of the board are appointed by M&C so expecting them to overturn our vote after the full Special Exception process is a bit of a stretch.
The zoning examiner will now have several explicit criteria to consider when being asked to grant an exception. Those include considerations such as impacts on surrounding areas, environmental impact of undergrounding, size of the poles going in, proximity to scenic or gateway corridors, and proximity to residential areas. The utility will have to satisfy some of those before the zoning examiner can recommend the exception to the underground requirement. To be fair, there may well be areas along a given corridor where overgrounding is a justifiable exception. Around current industrial areas and the railroad tracks for example. TEP will identify specific areas in which they want an exception and begin the process for each segment.
We could have simply told TEP that they shall go underground for every single new installation. The result would have been the utility by-passing the city and going straight to either the Arizona Corporation Commission and/or the state legislature to seek their relief. In either of those cases local voices would have been completely pre-empted. We’ve seen it in plenty of other cases. The process we agreed on provides significant public input and opportunities for appeals. It’s fair to all parties and assures that any exception granted will have gone through that rigorous process. Nobody got everything they wanted, but everybody got something. It’s an example of how public policy cannot be a zero-sum game – and now we wait for TEP to apply for an exception, and we’ll see how the process works.
International Friends of Tucson
International Friends of Tucson is a non-profit that has been around for about 70 years. What they do is to pair international students who are attending the UA with individuals and families in the community. It’s a way of cross-pollinating cultures, interests, and a way of just making the international students feel welcome in our city.
IFT is trying to expand their pool of Tucson hosts. As a host you’ll meet young people who are here studying a wide variety of subjects – each with the desire to return home and put their academic achievements to work in their home countries. You may meet students from China, Turkey, India, Brazil, Bahrain, Ghana – from pretty much anywhere. By doing things as basic as going on a hike or a movie together, going out to dinner, or including ‘your’ student in family activities, it’s a way of starting new friendships that can last a lifetime.
If you’d like more information on how to connect with IFT, go to www.ifriendstucson.org and click on the ‘sign up’ button on the homepage. You’ll complete a host application, and someone will follow up with you by email. My in-laws have hosted several Danish and Chinese students. My mom was connected with a Chinese student. It’s a program that only has upsides, especially during these times when international relations feel so strained.
If you have questions about the program that aren’t answered through their website, you can email them at info@ifriendstucson.org.
Community Food Bank
Arizona ranks #14 nationally in childhood hunger. One in 4 kids and 1 in 5 adults are at risk for hunger. Right now, the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona is serving 20% more families than they did during 2021. That 20% increase is putting a strain on both their food supply, and on their volunteer staff. We are once again collecting food for the CFB at the Ward 6 office. Please bring your non-perishables and drop them. The collection box is right in our front entry area. And if you can help them out in other ways look over their website at www.communityfoodbank.org and see about getting connected.
You can also register for this year’s Hunger Walk. It’s coming on September 10th out at the Kino Sports Complex. It’s the major fund-raising event for CFB every year – a leisurely walk (not a race) all in support of the work Michael McDonald and his CFB staff are doing. They need an extra boost this year so it’d be great if you can help.
Friends and Community
Tagging onto those two items – Friends and community – over the weekend a group of neighbors took their time to help clean Arcadia Wash. While we’re in-between homeless groups setting up shop there – and the city going back to squeeze them to another location (around and around we go under the fiction that we’re addressing the issue) - there is still debris left from the few people who continue bedding down for the night in the wash. This photo shows what the neighbors gathered.
That’s 11 plastic bags full, a mattress, some foam pads, and other items. They invested nearly 3 hours in the heat doing that work. Many thanks to them for the help. A series of controlled camps out of the wash would provide a more dignified living space for many of our unhoused, and it would lighten this sort of community burden.
COVID
Last week New York City’s positivity rate was 15 percent. That’s the highest they’ve seen since January. And hospitalizations are rising there again. Experts attribute this to the new BA.5 variant of Omicron. It’s the most transmissible variant COVID has thrown at us to date. It’s what happens when people don’t vaccinate early, and the virus is given a wide opportunity to mutate in unprotected hosts. It’s what health experts were warning about throughout last year’s debates over mandatory vaccinations and masking. In New York they’re logging roughly 3,700 cases per day. Experts say the true number is likely 10x higher than that due to self-testing and poor reporting. It’s the same story throughout the country.
To be sure our local data is accurate; Pima County is still offering a free prescription for an oral antiviral treatment if you test positive. It’s called their ‘Test to Treat” program. You do not need an insurance card to qualify. The way it works is you are evaluated by one of the providers at no cost if you test positive. Then, if you meet these criteria, you may be deemed eligible for the free anti-viral meds:
People are potentially eligible for oral antiviral treatment after a positive test if:
- They are 12 or older
- Weigh at least 88 pounds
- Have mild to moderate symptoms
- Have a high risk of severe COVID-19 illness
Use these links to get more information on where to go to get tested and evaluated, and information on the treatment itself.
pima.gov/covid19testing.
pima.gov/covid19treatment.
Our Pima County case counts dipped a bit compared to the previous week. But statewide there were 60 more COVID fatalities last week – 13 in Pima County. Here’s my updated trend chart:
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Week of
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Pima County
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Arizona
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April 24th
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260 new cases
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2,350 new cases
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May 1st
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510 new cases
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3,911 new cases
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May 8th
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776 new cases
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5,404 new cases
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May 15th
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1,090 new cases
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7,204 new cases
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May 22nd
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1,692 new cases
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11,498 new cases
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May 29th
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1,985 new cases
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13,042 new cases
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June 5th
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2,200 new cases
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14,677 new cases
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June 12th
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2,451 new cases
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16,334 new cases
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June 19th
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2,559 new cases
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15,373 new cases
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June 26th
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2,263 new cases
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16,514 new cases
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July 3rd
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2,210 new cases
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20,198 new cases
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July 10th
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1,880 new cases
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15,280 new cases
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It’s the first time Pima County has dropped below 2,000 new cases since the end of May.
Here’s our state map dating back to the start of this in 2020.
I put that updated map in every week so it’s easy to just pass over as background noise. But look for a moment at the numbers of people who have suffered from this virus since it all began in 2020. None of us would have predicted that over a quarter of a million cases would have been contracted in Pima County alone. And to put it into more stark perspective, this chart is for the state in the past week:
It’s still with us, and it’s still killing people. Boosters work.
Here are this week’s Pima County Health vaccine centers.
The Harvard Global Health Care risk level map shows some clear spreading of the virus in all parts of the country during the past week. It’s likely showing the effects of the July 4th travel where millions resumed normal activities, ignoring masks in crowded airports. Mississippi and Florida decided to report this week – both are in the high-risk category.
These are daily national averages for the past week showing the severity of cases. I’ve spoken with health care people, and they’re frustrated and burned out trying to convince people that the virus is still killing people, putting people in hospitals and is on the upswing.
 The Pima County numbers showed improvement week over week. And they still put us in the high-risk level of transmission. That means you should be masking when in groups, avoiding large public gatherings and isolating if you’ve got symptoms and/or around people who have tested positive.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
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