Novel Reclaim Effort Done on Contractors Own Initiative: No City Council Mandate Required
Tar Bitumen has been in the street repaving business for decades. As a result, he understands every aspect of street engineering and the supply chain issues associated with street repairs. Bitumen’s firm, PCI Zero Enterprises (PCIZE), has been contracted by the City of Berkeley to provide repaving services. In fact, the PCIZE was founded in Berkeley with its name derived from projections in the quality of Berkeley streets over time. Bitumen shared his thinking, “you know when the city acknowledged over a half-billion dollars in unfunded infrastructure needs we knew pavement would be a cash-cow.”
However, recently supply chain issues emerged in the asphalt market threatening PCIZE’s ability to deliver on the ever-growing needs of Berkeley streets. Then, literally, the October rain deluge created a “perfect storm” opportunity for the company. Bitumen was aware that many of Berkeley’s existing streets are in such a fragile condition they were likely to wash away. “This inconvenient truth has not been evident during years of drought, but a Bitumen knows when conditions are ripe for road dissolution.” “Looking at rain projections we realized thousands of metric tons of pavement were going to wash into San Francisco Bay, that is when we jumped into action.”
A section of a Berkeley street washed out by the recent deluge
Bitumen’s team placed equipment designed to capture the asphalt particles at storm drain discharge points. “It was black gold, the heavier the rain the more we captured. If it were not for our capture technology, it would have been Gold Rush era contamination of the bay with silt.” Thus, it was a twofer where PCIZE was able to collect a mission critical resource while protecting the bay from contaminants.
With thousands of tons of reclaimed asphalt in inventory, PCIZE is now busy repaving Berkeley’s streets under contract from the city. Further, PCIZE qualifies for “bonus payments” under the city’s Reclaimed Materials Incentives Ordinance (RMIO). RMIO reimburses the contractor for the cost of reclaiming materials thus PCIZE can bill the city at five times the cost. One observer noted that Berkeley is now paying twice for the same asphalt at five times the cost. R U Knuts, who self-describes as “financially sane” pointed out during a recent public comment session that Berkeley is paying a premium for “asphalt that they have already paid for.”
In response, council member Kate Harrison stated, “look our residents have a strong commitment to the environment, and they are willing do what it takes to support reuse and recycling.” Sophie Hahn added, “If it scores points with the Zero Waste Commission, it scores points for me.” In what might be best described as a moment of “procedural posturing”, Ben Bartlett pointed out this effort was initiated by individual entrepreneurship and questioned whether something “could be defined as environmental if the city council had not passed a resolution making such a determination?” Appearing somewhat perplexed by the Bartlett’s position, Mayor Arreguín referred the question to general council.