Wednesday, August 27, 2025, 9:30 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Climate, Water, Environment, and Parks Committee
The Climate, Water, Environment, and Parks Committee met on August 27, 2025 with all members present. After public communication from two speakers (on parks funding and the I-35 bridge reconstruction), the committee approved the minutes of its July 30 meeting. Members received a briefing from Austin Resource Recovery Director Richard McHale on a transfer station feasibility study, including potential sites, financial analysis, community and environmental-justice considerations, and a target of operational by 2030; staff committed to return in the fall with a property. The committee then heard from Watershed Protection staff on the Rain to River strategic plan update, including extensive community engagement results and a timeline for plan adoption in spring 2026. Finally, staff answered questions on a memo about the on-demand bulk pickup program, with discussion of collections trends and possible future data.
0:02 And it is nine thirty four.
0:05 And I'll call to order the climate water environment and parks committee.
0:09 We are here at 3 0 1 west second street, uh, in the boards and commissions room.
0:14 The entire committee is present.
0:17 So with that, we are going to open it up for public communication, and I believe we have
0:22 three speakers this morning.
0:25 Alright,
0:43 if I can have Mike ti.
0:57 Good morning council members, uh, Mike kanati here.
1:00 I'm, uh, in an unofficial representation today, the friends of barton springs pool and the barton springs conservancy.
1:06 But, um, actually that's why I'm supporting our new shirt.
1:10 Um, I wanted to start off by thanking council for the resolution.
1:14 Y'all passed, I think it was last week, to sort of explore some new funding recommendations.
1:18 I know this has been a priority for the council and this committee in particular.
1:22 Um, and I was gonna share a few observations that maybe you already know about, uh, about the
1:26 three things that y'all put into play.
1:28 Um, the, the lgc feasibility idea is certainly something worth looking into.
1:32 Um, I don't think it requires cooperation by the county, and I think that's something that is maybe
1:38 a requirement for the parks district, but, um, the park maintenance fee seems like it's a really good
1:43 short term solution. I hope that we're gonna be able to make some progress with that as well.
1:47 Um, and I just also wanted to mention something that was featured, I think in the park director's
1:53 presentation last week about this, the expert study.
1:56 Um, they had noted these three among other, uh, relu ideas to look into for funding, uh, resources.
2:03 But, um, something that was also featured primarily, I think it was a third, uh, recommendation they had,
2:08 was to explore working with nonprofit sector to try to unlock private money to help supplement what the
2:14 city does. I know council has been doing great work trying to address our budget needs with the
2:19 tre election, and we're gonna have upcoming, uh, council action to, to, to try to find bond funding.
2:25 But unlocking the private sector, as you all know, is a way to get kind of, I would
2:29 call free money. Uh, it just takes some council direction and, and support for that to happen.
2:34 So, um, there was a questionnaire that was put out to the public and, uh, in the course
2:40 of coming up with that, uh, recommendation, and it was worth noting that the most popular category of
2:46 raising money was, um, new dedicated funding sources of ahead of increasing fees and ahead of increasing taxes.
2:52 And then the most, two most popular ways to find new dedicated funding sources, according to the survey
2:58 was, um, additional nonprofit parks supporting the parks and also additional avenues for financial donations to the park
3:05 system. So I'm hoping that's something that will be, I mean, I know you guys are supporters of
3:09 nonprofits in the space, and I just encourage you to continue to do that, to help bring private
3:13 money to help our park system.
3:15 Um, one thing that, you know, whether it's for a nonprofit or even for the lgc, which is
3:21 essentially kind of a nonprofit, uh, a key action that council can take is to unlock the funding
3:26 sources by providing some formal direction to, uh, the city about what we wanna see in our park
3:31 systems. So I've, I've been raising money for barton springs spool for the last 15 years, uh, and
3:37 we had the benefit of a barton springs pool master plan.
3:39 And so private donors would actually feel comfortable knowing there's, there's a plan here, the city's adopted, we
3:47 wanna see so and so happen.
3:48 And that is a, a, a big part of whether a new lgc is created or whether we
3:53 tap into other nonprofit partners in our parks.
3:56 Um, urge council to give us direction that fast.
4:01 Alright, thank you very much.
4:07 Up next we're gonna have crystalline wells,
4:15 chris lynn wells. If we don't have chris lynn next, we'll have santiago
4:36 greetings council members. Um, still trying to catch my breath.
4:41 I just ran across the lake to get here and, um, slowed my heartbeat down for a minute.
4:48 Uh, I didn't literally run across the lake.
4:51 I crossed one of the bridges that goes over the lake.
4:54 Um, and I'm here today to speak some concern about, um, what I believe the council is being
5:04 sort of blindsided by the, uh, I 35 bridge deconstruction of it and the reconstruction of it.
5:11 Um, one of the first phases for the disruption of the mul of the pedestrian way across, um,
5:21 across the colorado river, um, which is a very sensitive ecosystem that was disturbed back in the fifties,
5:31 um, with the first crossing, um, and then again in the eighties, which has created a massive dead
5:37 zone beneath I 35.
5:39 Uh, has no, had no ecological restoration whatsoever, continually erodes, um, including on the south shore, um, where
5:48 there's a Harper ferry branch, um, which has been completely, uh, asphalted over by I 35, um, which
5:57 was, again, blindsided by the public.
6:00 Um, done in secret, um, by, uh, textile director in the fifties.
6:05 Um, which the current textile headquarters is named after.
6:09 Um, uh, I'm advocating for, uh, a transportation study, um, something that can be done in action, uh,
6:19 specifically around the colorado river, um, through rainy street trailhead, up to, uh, the trail that goes all
6:28 the way around the lake, um, including honoring, uh, the tejano trail, um, which is a-n-h-r-p, uh, recognized,
6:39 um, uh, pathways, I suppose.
6:45 Um, so yeah, the first phase of, of the bridge is gonna be building a pedestrian bridge, a
6:52 multimodal path, 20 feet wide.
6:54 Um, there has been very poor renderings distributed to the public.
6:59 Um, there's going to be a bridge meeting that I'm here on behalf of fessel beach, food forest.
7:05 And informally we have a, a quarterly meeting guaranteed with txdot.
7:10 Um, we were written into the eis and, um, on September 4th, I would like council members to maybe
7:17 be present for that space and see the presentation, um, for the bridge and, uh, ask some very
7:24 critical questions about what that is to look like and how it's going to, um, connect and maintain,
7:30 um, connectivity with the east avenue, uh, trail.
7:36 And, uh, I appreciate any consideration.
7:39 Thank you very much for being here and calling attention to that issue.
7:42 Appreciate. All right, with that, we will move to item number one, approval of the minutes for our
7:51 July 30th meeting. Is there a motion to approve the minutes?
7:55 So move by, uh, Council Member uchin, seconded by vice chair Ellis.
8:01 Uh, without objection, the minutes are approved.
8:04 That now takes us to item number two, a briefing on the transfer facility.
8:10 I believe, uh, director mcha is here from Austin resource recovery.
8:20 Good morning. Morning council members chair, vice chair?
8:45 No, now. Okay, there we go.
8:49 All right. Uh, once again, I'm, uh, richard mchale, director for Austin resource recovery.
8:55 Glad to be able to be here to discuss the results of the feasibility study that we had
8:59 done, uh, for a transfer station.
9:02 Um, this is something that's been, uh, wanted for a while now within the department and the community.
9:07 And so now we've had some feedback from our consultant who did a lot of work on this
9:11 to kind of help us determine what the, the cost impact will be in a general location where
9:16 it should be. So, um, the, the, the slide I have up there right now is, uh, that
9:22 is not our transfer station.
9:23 I would love if it were, but it, uh, this is actually a facility in bellevue, washington, adjacent
9:29 to seattle. So this is, uh, the factor, uh, transfer station.
9:35 Um, they have a, it's fully enclosed facility, uh, materials brought in there.
9:39 They even have a citizen drop off that is within the building.
9:43 That little building there to the right that is a household has its waste facility that they've, uh,
9:48 added to that facility to facilitate, uh, collecting materials from the general public without them having to go
9:54 to various sites and everything.
9:55 So city staff and myself actually went up to the facility on our, when we started doing our
9:59 due diligence on these projects to, to kind of see what some of the best practices were out
10:04 there. And, um, this was definitely one of them.
10:05 So, um, so the purpose of this study was really to determine if it was gonna be cheaper
10:12 for us to direct haul from our routes to the landfill.
10:15 And that means basically just, you know, not going to another facility, that we would go straight to
10:19 a disposal facility, whether that be a landfill or a recycling facility or a compost facility.
10:24 So, uh, and if, and if so, if that was warranted, what part of town would've they best
10:28 suited in? So, um, if that, uh, um, go ahead and go to the next slide.
10:36 This obviously by the, the tree coloration.
10:38 This is not texas, this is, uh, the northeast, this is delaware actually.
10:42 So, but it kind of gives an example of how uh, facilities can be, uh, placed within their
10:47 environment and them not stand out and be, um, aesthetically un unpleasing.
10:51 So, um, but what is a transfer station?
10:54 And so quite simply, it's a facility where solid waste is temporarily collected, sorting, consolidated before being transferred
11:00 to larger vehicles for transportation to either a landfill or recycling facility.
11:05 So, uh, this particular picture is from the city of dallas, so this is kind of an indoor
11:09 operation as well. So you can see that pile of material has been dumped from, uh, trucks and
11:15 that material will then be pushed into a larger tractor trailer to then be sent, uh, I would
11:19 assume to the mccombs landfill that, uh, city of dallas operates.
11:23 Um, I think it's not only important to determine what is a transfer station, but what is it
11:28 not? So, um, if any of you have kind of grown up in a, a rural part of
11:32 texas or another, another state, uh, you May have had the opportunity to go to kind of your
11:37 county, uh, transfer station, which it, in most cases is a pretty simple basic operation.
11:43 Kind of a lean to building kind of open on one side, exposed to the elements.
11:49 Um, typically just handles trash.
11:51 It May have a drop off center nearby.
11:53 So that is not what we're looking at doing.
11:55 We are looking at having an enclosed building 'cause of the, uh, the some negative environmental exter externalities
12:03 that can occur, whether it be odors or litters and everything.
12:05 We want to keep that contained in the building and not be in so that we can be
12:09 a good neighbor to, to whomever our neighbors are.
12:13 Um, it's also a facility, and you'll see on this slide, it's temporary collected.
12:17 So the material is not landfilled there, it is not kept there.
12:20 It is, once it goes there that day, it is removed that same day to a final disposal
12:25 site. So we don't wanna keep any materials in the building and the, uh, and uh, issues that
12:30 can come along with that, whether it be any type of vermin or, or odors or even the
12:35 potential for a fire.
12:36 So, uh, the material would be removed every day.
12:42 Um, so what are some of the benefits of the transfer station?
12:45 And, and there, there are numerous, so obviously we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
12:50 And really this is done by reducing our off route mileage.
12:53 And when I say off route mileage, I'm talking about time where our operators are not collecting materials.
12:59 They're actually just driving either to and from the route or from the route to disposal facility.
13:06 Most of our, uh, operations require two loads.
13:09 So you can imagine that's can be quite a, uh, significant amount of windshield time where they're not
13:15 actually collecting something. So that's very inefficient from our standpoint.
13:19 It's our, you know, we, we pay these operators to collect materials and then that's where the bulk
13:23 of that work should be instead of having to sit in traffic that, that we all experience, um,
13:28 here in Austin. Um, the, by reducing that mileage, we're also just inherently, um, being able to better
13:37 support electric, electrifying our fleet.
13:40 Um, that has been a, an issue for us.
13:42 Uh, Austin is a very spread out city and just having few facilities to be able to, to
13:48 dispose that, um, creates, um, some long travel times for us.
13:53 And, uh, electric trucks actually get better mileage when they're in the cities and kind of stopping and
13:58 going 'cause they can use that regenerative power from, from the breaking to to charge that battery.
14:03 We get actually worse mileage when we get out on the highways.