Winter 2007-8 Newsletter

PRESIDENT'S CORNER

by John Briest

As we enter the 2008 year, the Chapter remains extremely active. We had a wonderful program at our annual meeting in Rocky Ford this past October. The Board of Directors are hard at work making the Chapter a valuable resource to its membership. This year, the Board expects to make improvements to the Chapter’s website (www.coloradoswana.org) by highlighting training events which may appeal to a different part of our membership. Additionally, National SWANA has asked the chapters to recruit new members. To do this the Board plans to extend the scholarship program to potential members when the scholarships are not utilized by the existing membership. If that is not enough, the Board is already working on the 2008 annual meeting. The Board and I look forward to another rewarding year serving you, our membership; we hope that as members you are able to take advantage of the opportunities which the Board organizes. If you have suggestions on ways to improve the membership experience, please contact any of the Colorado SWANA Board – we will be glad to help.

Road-E-O

The Road-E-O is in need of a committee chair to organize the committee and the local Colorado trash truck Road-E-O for 2008. The Board needs your assistance in making the 2008 Road-E-O move forward to become as successful as the 2007 Road-E-O.

February Technical Session:
Hands-On Sampling Protocols Or Which Way Does The Water Pour?

by Debby Barton

In a continuing effort to provide additional training to solid waste professionals, the Colorado SWANA Board of Directors held a workshop on ground water and gas monitoring protocols including equipment maintenance and operations. The workshop was held on Wednesday, February 20th, at the Geotech Environmental Equipment, Inc. offices located at 2650 E 40^th Ave in Denver, CO. In addition to lunch, a workbook was given to all paid registered attendees which included more information than covered in the class. One topic covered at the workshop included basic calibration techniques for gas monitoring equipment. Geotech professionals demonstrated how to detect equipment failures, as well as the pros and cons of owning or leasing the equipment.

Most of the class involved issues of ground water sampling including:

• The LEGAL importance of a properly completed Chain of Custody
• Low flow sampling techniques
• Field information during a sampling event
• Proper sampling techniques
• Detection of equipment failures and anomalies before getting laboratory results, and
• Dos and don’ts during the sampling event.

Students were able to handle the equipment and “pull” samples to gain some practice. They then had an opportunity to tour the plant and see equipment manufacturing processes. For more information, contact Deborah Barton, Montezuma County Landfill, 970-565-9858.

Save The Date!

by Dick Sprague

At the February meeting, the Board approved an April meeting at Colorado Lining in Parker, CO. This should be an informative, interactive session with representatives of the Colorado lining industry providing information and Q&A on several different lining systems. Look for information in future emails, or contact Neil Nowak or Kathy Claes.

2007 ANNUAL CONFERENCE -
Fun Had By All In Rocky Ford!

by Tom Strickland

This October marked another successful and informative Colorado Rocky Mountain SWANA Chapter Annual Conference. Over 60 members and guests attended the two-day conference held at the historic Train Depot of Rocky Ford. Twelve talks were given by members and guests on such issues as legal, special waste, e-waste and recycling, landfill operations, climate change, local and railroad-specific history.

A visit to the Otero County Regional Landfill

Highlights of the annual conference included a presentation on historical finds at the Bents Old Fort Site, including historical solid waste practices, a visit to the Otero County Regional Landfill, BNSF trains passing by the depot during the conference and the very popular Cowboy Poet at the Thursday night banquet.

As our own members’ “warm-up band” to the Cowboy Poet, several brave souls entered the “tales of the landfill” competition. The offeringswere exemplary of health and safety practices – or, not – or just plain hilarious. The judging was tough. Based on the popularity of this evening session, we might have to include it in a future annual conference!

Presentations from the annual conference can be viewed online at the chapter website at www.coloradoswana.org/presentations.

According to the conference surveys, everyone greatly enjoyed the meals at Rocky Ford and found the information presented very useful. Also, the surveys indicated that the majority of attendees are pleased with holding the conference in the fall and continuing to rotate the conferencelocation around the state. Information gathered from the surveys will help us better service our members and guests in planning future conferences and events.

Thank you to all the conference presenters, sponsors and exhibitors. Without you, the conference would have not been possible.

Stay tuned for information about the 2008 Annual Conference!

Save The Date!

by Dick Sprague

At the February meeting, the Board approved moving forward with an annual conference in Golden on October 2^nd & 3^rd. Save these dates for another exciting annual meeting!

A First-timer’s Trip to WASTECON

By Susie Gordon

I was fortunate to receive financial assistance from Colorado SWANA to attend the 2007 WASTECON conference and exhibition in Reno, Nevada. (Please check out our chapter’s generous scholarship fund, which can be used for members’ professional development or training; it’s easy to apply for on-line at http://www.coloradoswana.org/scholarships/).

As part of the scholarship, I promised to report on my trip to WASTECON, so here it is. The educational sessions were top-notch with all sorts of speakers who talked about: cutting edge research (like the anaerobic digester system at UC Davis that can handle 120 tons of organics daily); state-of –the-art HHW facilities such as those built in Chicago and Lancaster County, PA; emerging issues (next year, our landfills will be deluged with 28.5 MILLION televisions because HDTV technology makes analog TVs obsolete!); and planning projects like the $4 million waste composition study completed by New York City. That just covers a few of the topics, but all the presentations were copied to a CD, which I have already found to be very useful.

The Colorado contingent: Susie Gordon, Lisa Skumatz, Stephen Gillette, Laurie Batchelder-Adams, Dick Sprague, and Kathy Andrew
– and that wasn’t even all of us.

The WASTECON trade show is impressive, and I learned a lot about products and vendors. (Although I didn’t get caught up in the daily Keno drawings, it was clearly a huge hit.) Another highlight was the networking event held Wednesday at Reno’s National Bowling Stadium (where the movie Kingpin, starring Bill Murray, was filmed). But for me, the best part of the trip was seeing such a great turn-out from our Colorado members. Dr. Lisa Skumatz was honored with a Distinguished Service Award and our own Laurie Batchelder-Adams took her place as the new President of SWANA!

I’m really appreciative to have had the opportunity to attend a SWANA WASTECON conference. My employer, Fort Collins, is like most municipal governments and rarely approves out-of-state travel, so it was a huge help to have most of my expenses paid by the chapter’s scholarship fund. Many thanks, Colorado Rocky Mountain SWANA!

Co-SWANA Scholarship Recipient

By Kaitlyn Edmiston

The Colorado Chapter of the Solid Waste Association of North America (CO-SWANA) strives to enhance academic and professional development within solid waste management disciplines. CO-SWANA currently awards scholarships each year to individuals who are seeking careers in the engineering/waste industry to do just that. For those of you who do not know already, grants and scholarships maybe awarded to SWANA members, prospective members, and college/university students who express great interest in helping to raise the standards of excellence in the waste management field.

This past fall, CO-SWANA geared up to award ten to fifteen grants of $25-$500 for a variety of educational expenses plus a $1,000 scholarship for academic expenses. After reviewing the criteria for the award, I was presented the $1,000 scholarship. My name is Kaitlyn Edmiston and I am currently a full-time sophomore student at Colorado School of Mines. While holding a GPA of 3.67 I also play an important role on both the CSM varsity volleyball and track teams. Though any pursuit of higher education is an expensive enterprise my future plans are more pricey than most. After receiving my civil engineering degree from Mines, I am considering the pursuit of a master’s degree in architectural engineering from Montana State University or possibly University of Colorado-Boulder. Ultimately I want to be a well rounded individual willing to go the extra mile to guarantee a quality structure. Although I am not connected to the waste management field directly, my skills will be able to assist professional development within solid waste management disciplines.

With a busy future planned ahead, I am very grateful for the financial help. My collegiate expectations are self imposed and aggressive, and with this assistance from CO-SWANA nothing will be able to stop me from my dreams.

In closing I would like to thank the Board Members of the Colorado Chapter of SWANA for their time in evaluating my request for a scholarship. I would also like to express how others should apply for this scholarship. Money should never be a barrier when you have the opportunity to further your education.

If you visit the CO-SWANA website at http://www.coloradoswana.org/ and click the scholarship link you can get more information. To be eligible for the scholarship, the student must be enrolled, or have been accepted and are preparing to enroll, in any Colorado college, community college, or university in the following types of programs: Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Planning, Economics, Education, Natural Resources Management, Chemistry, Hydrology, Geology, or other related sciences.

Web Site Update

by Roger Doak

The new year provides an opportunity for change. Based on member feedback from the 2007 annual meeting the board will endeavor to implement significant improvements to the CO-SWANA web site during 2008. These changes will include: 1) an improved calendar; 2) a search engine; 3) member forum; 4) electronic payment option; and 5) enhanced exposure for companies that advertise on our web site.

Calendar

The calendar will have a new look; ok, more of a traditional look where the year, month or day can be viewed. Dates where local or national solid waste events are scheduled will be highlighted (e.g., SWANA training, annual meetings, stakeholder meetings, board meeting, etc.).

Search Engine

Currently the CO-SWANA web site does not have a search engine. With the ever-growing number of presentations and information on our site trying to navigate to a subject of interest can be very frustrating. The search engine will be fairly typical, allowing you to locate topics such as landfill design, recycling, legislative update, etc. on our web site.

Member Forum

Have you ever had a landfill operational issue or a question on sampling procedures and thought, if I could only discuss this with another operator maybe they have experienced this problem and have a solution. That’s the concept for the member forum so that we can share ideas and solutions to common problems. There are a lot of resourceful individuals in our business and creating a format to discuss and exchange ideas will only enhance creative results.

Electronic Payment

The board will research different online payment options (e.g. PayPal) to allow attendees the choice of electronic payment for training programs and the annual meeting.

Advertisements

We will create a new look for how advertisements are viewed on the web site. Survey results from the annual meeting suggest members are ok with ads displayed on the borders of a web page so long as they are not intrusive or distracting. One idea would bring the advertisers to you when researching a subject. For example, when you are using the new search engine feature to study GCL installation, advertisers who install GCLs would be displayed on that web page. If your company is interested in advertising on the Colorado SWANA web site you can contact Roger Doak for more information. As the board adds new content or updates current features to the web site we will let members know. Take the opportunity today and frequently thereafter, and do some surfing on our web site at www.coloradoswana.org.

SWANA Empowers Chapters To Recruit Members

by Kathy Callaghan - Associate Director, SWANA National

At this year’s Annual Business Meeting, the SWANA IB approved an additional $20 dues reimbursement for each new SWANA Member brought in by the Chapters.

Chapters will be reimbursed each month, as part of their monthly dues reimbursement, an additional $20 for each new (1^st Time) Member that has paid their Membership fee.

In order for the Chapter to receive this additional payment the new Members must include the Chapter Source Code on submitted Membership Applications either on the printed application or on the application on www.swanastore.com.

The Chapter Source Codes are shown on the attachment “FY08 Chapter Source Codes.xls”. In most cases the Chapter Source Codes are the State or Provincial abbreviation followed by 08. For example, for Alabama the Source Code is “AL08” . For the multi-state and multi provincial applications see the attachment for the Chapter Source Codes.

New Membership Applications for your Chapter have been placed on the Chapter Officer's Web Site (http://swanachapters.org). The Alabama application is attached as an example. The Chapter Source codes have been placed at the top-right hand corner of the printed applications. On applications submitted through SWANASTORE.COM the Chapter Source Code should be placed in the Comments Section of the online application.

Each Chapter should do the following to implement this new Membership promotion program:

1. UPDATE CHAPTER WEB SITES. Please upload your Chapter-Specific Membership Application (located on the Chapter Officer’s Web Site/Extranet, at http://swanachapters.org) to your local SWANA Chapter Website. Please note that the prices have increased since FY 2007 and all OLD Applications should be removed from your site as soon as possible.
2. DISTRIBUTE AT LOCAL EVENTS. Distribute your Chapter-Specific Membership Applications at your local events/meetings.
3. USE SOURCE CODE FOR ONLINE ORDERS. Inform all prospective members that join SWANA on-line to enter your unique Chapter Source Code in the Comments section of their Order Check Out Screen. Only memberships ordered online that reference your Chapter’s Source Code, will be eligible for the the additional $20 Chapter reimbursement.

Benefits Are Bountiful

by Kathy Claes

Did you know that The Colorado Rocky Mountain Chapter (CRMC) of the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) is your connection to an organization consisting of more than 145 solid waste management professionals from communities throughout Colorado and over 7,800 worldwide? Benefits of membership include subscription to MSW Solutions and MSW Management, substantial discounts on all training, conferences, certifications, educational products, scholarships, access to the industry's most essential technical information, networking opportunities, and career development tools.

In addition, membership provides you an opportunity to weigh in on important legislative and advocacy efforts. CRMC sponsors various meetings and workshops throughout the year which offer valuable quality training, as well as interaction with peers to keep you on the leading edge in your area of the industry. The highlight of each year is an annual conference featuring technical and informative presentations and the latest in products and services. It regularly brings together sixty or more industry professionals from around Colorado. Anyone involved in the Solid Waste Industry in any way is encouraged to become a member, the “benefits are bountiful”. For more information on membership please contact Kathy Claes at 719-520-7879.

Annual Treasurer’s Report

by Stephen W. Gillette

2007 was another great year for our Colorado Rocky Mountain SWANA Chapter. As you can see from our balance sheet our over all net worth has increased $1,121.79. This year our chapter was able to increase our investment with National SWANA to help update the training they offer to our members. Other items of note were that we provided a $1,000 scholarship to Kaitlyn Edmiston, sent one board member to WASTECON, provided one scholarship to our annual meeting, had a great Road-E-O event, had a great annual meeting, and provided some opportunities for training to our members.

Thanks to all of our members and our sponsors for helping to make this last year a year to remember. If you have any questions concerning our financials please contact me at 970-498-5762.

Balance Sheet
	01/01/07	1/1/2008	CHANGES
ASSETS
Cash and Bank Accounts
Checking	$14,658.01	$10,909.98	$(3,748.03)
Savings	$17,565.91	$18,419.80	$853.89
TOTAL	$32,223.92	$29,329.78	$(2,894.14)
OTHER ASSETS
E-Business Loan	$12,137.32	$16,153.25	$4,015.93
TOTAL ASSETS	$44,361.24	$45,483.03	$1,121.79
LIABILITIES & EQUITY
Liabilities	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Equity	$44,361.24	$45,483.03	$1,121.79
TOTAL Liabilities & Equity	$44,361.24	$45,483.03	$1,121.79

Send Your News Items to:

Dick Sprague
HDR Engineering, Inc.
103 East 17th Avenue, Suite 700
Denver, CO 80203

(303) 764-1520
(303) 860-7139 fax
Email