STUDY: DROP PLAN FOR NEW DUMP, SHIP TRASH OUT OF
COUNTY
BYLINE: DONNA HOROWITZ , 12/9/04, PAGE: A1, © 2004 The Press Democrat
Sonoma County should abandon long-standing plans to build a new
landfill and instead haul its garbage out of the county, according to a
new study.
The report, released six months before the county
landfill is expected to reach full capacity, calls for a dramatic change
to county policy. Currently, the county is planning to expand its
landfill near Cotati and later build a new dump elsewhere in the county.
However, the county faces formidable regulatory hurdles and political
obstacles to building a new landfill, said Ken Wells,
integrated waste manager for the county.
The $150,000 study, prepared by a San Francisco
consultant, lists an array of options to deal with the the county's
garbage.
``We have to make decisions right now,''
Wells said.
The study will be presented tonight at a
public workshop in Santa Rosa by the county Transportation and Public
Works Department.
The recommendation that the county
permanently truck its garbage to other dumps in the Bay Area drew fire
Wednesday from an environmentalist on the county's solid-waste task
force.
``It's something we've opposed for a long
time and will continue to oppose,'' said Don Sanders, a Sierra Club
representative on the advisory board.
``Every jurisdiction should be responsible
for their own waste and not ship it to someone else,'' he said.
The county is re-evaluating its longstanding plans
to build a new landfill because of the difficulty of containing
contaminants at its current dump, the Central Disposal Site in the hills
southwest of Cotati.
Last summer, contaminants from decomposing
trash were found seeping through a plastic barrier that lines the dump,
although there has been no sign of toxins tainting ground water.
The county has been planning to expand the
dump. But the project has been delayed after state regulators called for
improvements to contain leaks.
Because of the delays, the county began in April
hauling 400 tons of trash each day -- or about a third of its garbage --
to Potrero Hills in Fairfield.
In July, it will begin trucking all of its trash,
or 1,200 tons a day, outside Sonoma County when the landfill on Mecham
Road is expected to reach capacity.
With the dump filling up, the county hired Brown,
Vence & Associates of San Francisco to look at its plans for
handling garbage and develop proposals.
The study concluded that building a new landfill
was the least attractive option of eight alternatives.
Finding a new location for a dump would be
controversial because neighbors would likely object, Wells said.
In addition, state water-quality regulators would
likely reject the project, he said. There would be a ``high risk of
regulators saying no'' to a new landfill, Wells said.
Bob Tancreto, water-quality control engineer with
the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, denied that his
agency imposes impossible hurdles.
``You have to demonstrate you're not going to
pollute the ground water and it costs money to do that,'' he said.
Trucking garbage outside the county could make
sense for Sonoma County, Tancreto said. Other counties in the region
have taken similar actions to avoid polluting ground water.
``It's pretty much what other counties in the high
rainfall areas (on the North Coast) have decided,'' he said.
The study does not contain cost estimates for any
of its alternatives. The options range from sending trash out of the
county to expanding the dump to privatizing the landfill.
A detailed economic analysis will be conducted once
those scenarios are whittled down to two to four options, Wells said.
That information would be presented at another workshop, tentatively set
for Jan. 18.
Ultimately, the county Board of Supervisors would
have to decide whether to abandon plans to build a second dump and send
trash outside the county.
Supervisors also could decide to forgo expanding
the current dump. The landfill could accommodate garbage for 10 to 30
more years if it is enlarged, Wells said.
Hauling trash out of the county would result in
``very little if any'' rate increases to residents, Wells said. It could
be cheaper to truck garbage outside the county than to build a landfill,
he said.
``There's quite a bit of landfill capacity in
Northern California,'' Wells said. ``We probably could get a pretty good
price.''
The county's trash would most likely be taken to
Redwood Landfill in Novato, Keller Canyon in Antioch or Potrero Hills.
Although county supervisors had not seen the report
Wednesday, Supervisor Mike Kerns said he was not surprised by its
conclusions.
``It's very possible if we entered into a
long-term, fixed rate with another landfill (outside the county), we
could get a pretty good rate,'' Kerns said.
``I'll be interested to see the alternatives and
the cost estimates,'' he said. ``There's a lot of information that needs
to be disseminated and evaluated.''
Top
|