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Commissioner Gordon asked for an explanation of franchising and Gayle Wilson said that it is a government asserting control over the waste sector. There are franchises related to callection of waste and/or recyclables and franchises related to disposal facilities. The new bill would require the County to compensate the private haulers' businesses of 18-24 months of gross revenues. John Link made reference to page 10 of the abstract, which has a good questionnaire. He said that there needs to be an essay question about pay as you throw and how it relates to operation of the landfill if Chapel Hill or Carrboro wants it. He thinks this might come up at the Assembly of Governments meeting. Chair Jacobs said to ask staff to define franchising in writing. The County Attorney has written one memo about this and the Board needs to see this again. He would also like to see additional fruitful areas of recycling, and the issue of franchising relates to siting of convenience centers. Chair Jacobs asked about page 5 and the work group and how it is going to proceed. He is hesitant to call what the work group does having a public hearing because it is not a publicly constituted body. He would rather call it a public comment session. f. Feasibility of Landfill Gas Recovery Rod Visser said that this topic has been of interest to the Board for some time in terms of looking into the feasibility of extracting energy from a landfill from methane gas and how might this be used, etc. The staff asked the consulting engineer to provide a brief analysis. Gayle Wilson said that they looked at three energy recovery options: Producing energy either through micro-turbines ar internal cambustion engines Extraction of dirty gas and delivery to a nearby industrial use Capturing the gas and processing it to upgrade it and selling it, or putting it into a gas company line He said that the only two options that the consultant thought were feasible were the high grade BTU pipeline gas or the creation of electricity through micro-turbines or internal combustion engines. He said that the landfill gas recovery process requires a balance of maximizing the amount of electricity produced with the generation ability. The old landfill on the north side is probably not worth pursuing for this. The only one with potential is the new landfill on the south side. The consultants did not seem to believe that there is an economically viable gas energy project. When the staff asked about the new schools planned in the future as well as a new animal shelter, the consultants said that they could do a more focused analysis of providing energy to one or more of those facilities. The analysis that was done looked at three options and none broke even. Same of the costs were steep and the County would have to invest in a collection system. He said that if the County Commissioners want them to pursue this further, they would need additional information on the facilities and the energy demands. Cammissianer Halkiotis said that it would be nice to explore amicro-turbine providing electricity for the Solid Waste administration building. He would also like to explore this possibility for the schools and the animal shelter. Chair Jacobs said that there is a critical mass of needs in this area and for them to talk to Steve Scroggs of CHCCS because they are going to operate on a quick timeframe for a new school. He would like to do some additional analyses.