To:  Civic Association Presidents of Metro Council District 12

Below for your information is an extract from the email received from Walter Monsour, Chief Administrative Officer, Office of the Mayor-President, City of Baton Rouge, Parish of East Baton Rouge, regarding changes in the garbage collection:

“At the present time, we are experiencing some difficulties with the collection of residential solid waste in East Baton Rouge Parish as a result of the population increase due to Hurricane Katrina.  Residential garbage volumes have increased by over 40% in the 2-week period following the storm. Additionally, BFI trucks have experienced delays created by a significant increase in traffic congestion. Primarily the difficulties are occurring on the first pickup day (Mon-Wed), as those days are typically high volume days. In order to resolve these delays, beginning Monday, September 19, 2005, we will commence with the following changes in our collection procedures.

1.      The contract requires that all residential solid waste generated by the citizens of East Baton Rouge must go to North Landfill. Due to permit requirements, we have limited hours of operation at North Landfill. Our operating hours are 7AM to 7PM during the week. However, these hours are during the peak traffic hours and only provide a limited amount of relief to the enormous increase in volume that we have seen. A starting time of 5AM during the week will go into effect on Monday, September 19.

2.      The contract with BFI limits the hours in which they can operate their trucks in the Parish. The contract allows them to operate from 5AM to 8PM. Again, due the increased traffic that occurs during this time as well as noise considerations, they are currently limited in their options which would include operating night/early morning shifts in times when traffic congestion is increased. Waving these restrictions would allow them to run more shifts during the times in which the traffic congestion is decreased thereby increasing the likelihood of completing service on the scheduled collection day.  Accordingly, I have authorized BFI to begin 3 hours earlier starting at 2AM effective Monday, September 19.

 “We are working hard to find a solution.  Equipment is not a problem.  BFI has added 15 new rear-load trucks and have more trucks on the way to assist with the increased volumes.  However, the personnel issue is more complicated, as they must recruit and train as many as 15 additional drivers to help alleviate the problems. They have a team of recruiters in from other divisions to assist then in hiring more drivers. The hiring process (background check, drug screens and training) can take as much as 21 days to complete which does not give us any immediate help. In the next couple of weeks, residents may experience slight delays in collection on the first collection day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday).  If we are unable to complete collection on the scheduled day, BFI will make sure to dispatch their trucks to the uncompleted route first thing the next morning with a goal of completing that route by no later than 12:00 PM the next day.

 “These changes are being made with the goal of a) being able to pick up garbage on the assigned days, and b) hopefully relieving some of our traffic concerns.”