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62-709 Industry Review and Recommended Changes EffortInterest Meeting Update, Call for Comments, and Work Group Members
Greetings! We would like to start by thanking all of you that registered for and joined Monday’s (September 11th) kick-off call on the FLCC’s efforts to review 62-709 Criteria for Organics Processing and Recycling Facilities and provide to FDEP an industry list of recommended changes to improve and clarify 62-709.
Here is the current plan and summary notes of Monday’s meeting!
In our call, we discussed the history of Chapter 62-709 and how it has been in place for over 20 years and that the last changes were made to it in 2010. So, it is very much time to revisit 62-709 with all the changes in the processing of organics and the expansion of composting that we have seen in the last 13 years and hope to see in the near future! We also discussed how fortunate our industry is that Karen Moore of FDEP reached out to us and asked us to provide our industry recommended changes to her team as they hope to finalize their proposed rule changes for the public workshop and adoption process next year. And how thrilled we are to have over 40 individuals’ express interest in supporting and contributing to this process. I would like to express again that it is our intent to create an open discussion process for companies and individuals involved in the organics recycling and composting industry to provide their comments and have open meetings to review all comments and recommended changes, and work to develop consensus on what the working group includes in our final recommendations to FDEP. It is also important to note that our main focus will be on what is contained in 62-709 and realize that not all issues can be addressed through the rewrite of 62-709. We had a good bit of discussion on that yesterday, and how some concerns need to be addressed through other avenues going forward. We are open to receiving those comments and recommended changes so that the FLCC can include them in future work efforts of our Committees and Membership. But we do need to be realistic on what changes in 62-709 can accomplish for our industry; and our myriad of additional needs to advance composting and compost markets in our State. The remainder of the meeting focused on actual process to achieve this! How to participate and submit feedback:
Consensus on the call yesterday was that Monday afternoon meetings work. We will be sending out meeting invites for the following Mondays from 3:00 p.m. – 4:30p.m. (EST); October 23rd, October 30th, November 6th and November 13th to those that indicate interest to serve on the work group. Since we want this to bean open process, we will allow additional people to get involved as they hear about our efforts and want to join. You may use the same response link to confirm your interest to participate in the work group meetings. Link- https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FLCC-62-709-workgroup. We will provide additional information the week of October 16th after we have had the opportunity to receive all comments and recommended changes and group them by Sections; to see where the majority of the recommended changes are; and group Sections’ discussions into the 4 dates above. This will allow all to know what Sections are being discussed on what date in case individuals only have interest in some of the Sections. The goal in each Work Session will be to review the Sections scheduled for that meeting, and the comments and changes proposed. We will work to develop consensus on what recommended changes to submit to FDEP. We will ask for civility during these meetings and understanding as we hear different viewpoints and work to develop reasonable and defensible recommended changes. The working group will take a well-deserved break during Thanksgiving week, November 20th-24th, and use the week of November 27th to compile the results of the 4 Work Sessions. This will allow us to issue a draft to all participants, and we can schedule Monday meetings for December 4th and 11th to have overall group discussion and hopefully approval of what to submit to FDEP. If you have any comments on the above plan on how to proceed with this effort, please email or call me. Let me thank you in advance for all of your involvement in this effort but our industry will benefit from it for decades! Thank you. Chris Snow, FLCC Chapter Affiliate Director Vice President of Corporate Operations Veransa, Inc. |
