Recommend approval to award an annual contract for yard waste management services to Daly Organics, LLC for up to $200,000. The Sanitation Department will use the yard waste management services to dispose of vegetative material collected by the City of Savannah’s Yard Waste Program. The program provides residents disposal of up to 15 bags of yard waste weekly.  The recommended bidder is expected to handle approximately 1,000 tons of vegetative material per month. Based on the volume of material; large scale, high maintenance, and heavily mechanized equipment is utilized for material processing.

Background

Yard waste was banned from disposal in landfills equipped with liners and leachate collection systems under the Georgia Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Act (OCGA12-8-40.2) effective September 1, 1996. At that point in time, yard waste was collected with regular garbage and then co-processed for energy production at the Savannah Resource Recovery Facility. The collection system was modified to provide source separated collection of these two waste streams following closure of the waste-to-energy facility in 2008.

Given the lack of suitable long term yard waste disposal capacity at the Dean Forest Road Inert Waste Landfill and the strong desire to manage the waste stream for beneficial re-use, Sanitation initiated an onsite stockpiling and processing program under an annual contract in 2010. The program concept was to stockpile yard waste on a two-acre site adjacent to the inert landfill to be shredded into mulch and hauled away by the contractor for composting or re-use. This approach would preserve available inert waste disposal capacity for alum sludge generated by the Industrial and Domestic Water Treatment Plant and large tree trunks and limbs generated from urban forestry operations by the City’s Park and Tree Department (now Greenscapes).

An out of town firm won the contract award as no local company submitted a responsive proposal. While the program operated well at first, the contractor’s performance deteriorated over time, ultimately resulting in two substantial compost fires on site in 2011. The contract was therefore terminated for cause.

Two other developments in this general time frame changed locally available yard waste management alternatives. First, the Georgia Solid Waste Management Act was amended to allow yard waste disposal in lined landfills equipped with beneficial methane recovery and re-use systems. Methane generation at Superior Landfill is of enough volume to support viable energy recovery. (Dean Forest Road Landfill does not generate methane at a commercially viable rate due to twenty-one years of highly efficient front-end energy recovery through the Savannah Resource Recovery Project.) Second, a local firm, ELP Landscaping, LLC., opened a vegetative debris processing yard on Dean Forest Road.

ELP Landscaping won the award on a new yard waste management contract, following a competitive request for proposals process in 2012, based on a non-landfill beneficial re-use methodology, proximity to the Dean Forest Road thus lower hauling costs, and lowest handling price. The firm performed very well over the years handling all the City’s collected yard waste. The company also handled the City’s post-Hurricane Matthew (pre-processed) vegetative debris.

ELP Landscaping suffered a catastrophic fire on their Dean Forest Road site last summer and notified Sanitation on August 24, 2020 they could no longer accept and process yard waste from the City of Savannah. Sanitation immediately diverted all yard waste to the Dean Forest Road Inert Waste Landfill. An emergency sole source agreement with Superior Landfill, Inc. was subsequently approved pending completion new service provider procurement.

The method used for this procurement was the request for proposals (RFP), which evaluates criteria in addition to cost. The proposals were evaluated on the basis of proposers' qualifications and experience, including support capabilities, technical capabilities, references, fees and DBE participation goals.  Due to the possibility of FEMA reimbursement at the time of the original award, the 20 points for local participation preference was removed from the scoring criteria leaving a maximum of 80 points allowed for each vendor.

Two proposals were received in response to this RFP. All proposals were reviewed and fully evaluated by a selection committee comprised of City staff. The contract award is being reduced to $200,000 to accommodate the 2021 budget. This contract expires on February 24, 2022 and has four renewal options.  

The proposers were:

B.P.       Daly Organics, LLC (Chatham County, GA)^(D)                         $480,000*

              Waste Management of Georgia, Inc (Savannah, GA)^(B)           $525,000

(B) indicates local, non-DBE owned business. (D) Indicates non-local, non-DBE business. (*) Indicates original bid amount

Approval