Manteca, California, has identified street repair as a legitimate expense for cost recovery in municipal garbage rates with the reason that one of the heaviest trucks that goes down most residential streets in the city is a municipal solid waste truck, the report says. But the proposed rate hike “suspends” the charge. In order to fund the road repairs, the city will funnel the money it receives from oil companies from the sale of RIN credits.
According to the report, RINs are credits that oil companies purchase to meet a federally mandated percentage of biofuel in their fuel production.
The city is gathering these RIN credits by spending $6.1 million over the next two years to create compressed natural gas (CNG) in order to fuel Manteca’s fleet of more than 20 trucks, the report says. Manteca is able to do this because its control of its solid waste and wastewater operations, the redesign and expansion of the wastewater treatment plant that could allow for codigestion and the city’s close location to the county’s solid waste transfer station that would make it able to use food waste from other jurisdictions.
The city’s plan includes a CNG fueling station at the wastewater treatment plant for its residents, the report says, along with a new corporation yard at the plant for its fleet. The yard project will cost $5 million.
