The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly passed a consent agenda item that would accept $89,997 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service for the Community Compost & Food Waste Recovery Program and enter into a memorandum of agreement with Bridges Community Resource Center to administer the project.
Assembly Member Tyson Cox:
“This is a project. It is for community composting and food waste in the central peninsula area. The Resilience Commission that has been going on, it was one of the recommendations from them. They have been pushing for that to happen. I believe they actually pushed for some of the grants to go through for that. hopefully that will be a program that will start up soon and be able to continue throughout.”
Bridges, doing business as Kenai Local Food Connection, will provide the 25% match requirement in the amount of $31,284 through in-kind contributions based on fair market values. The centrally located composting program will benefit local growers and would divert materials that would otherwise be discarded in the landfill.
According to Brenda Ahlberg, Community & Fiscal Projects Manager, some oversight by the planning staff is required that quarterly reports are submitted to Natural Resource Conservation Service, as required for reimbursements. Planning staff time and expenditures may be reimbursed through the grant.
Roughly half of household waste is compostable and could be diverted from the landfill to be utilized as valuable food for livestock and soil amendments. The memorandum of agreement also says that this would last for two years, from October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2023.
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NOTE: photo used courtesy of kenailocalfood.org