Bag ban gains momentum

A countywide ban on plastic grocery bags is gaining momentum in
Sonoma County, as the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency has
earned the support of 7 cities—including Healdsburg, Windsor, and
Sebastopol—as well as the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.
“The agency’s been studying it for about three years,” said
Henry Mikus, executive director of Sonoma County Waste Management
Agency. “Half of the world’s population lives in places that have
bag bans. There are whole countries with bans—Ireland’s one
example. It started to take root here because of the environmental
impacts of plastic bags, so the agency started looking at it.”
The carryout plastic bag ban is still far from a sure thing, and
is currently a preliminary proposal with many details yet to be
decided. However, city councils and supervisors expressed support
for a countywide ordinance, calling for continued research and work
by the SCWMA.
“Basically, this was a check-in point that the [SCWMA] board
wanted to do with the various city councils. Windsor said yes,”
said Windsor Town Manager Matthew Mullan, who is also a member of
the SCWMA board.
“The council is supportive of moving forward, but wanted to
learn more about it.  You only have to drive around this town and
county and you can see the impact of plastic bags. They’re all
over,” Mullan added.
The Healdsburg city council expressed support for the SCWMA’s
proposal but also noted that the city would continue to follow the
process and maintain ultimate decision-making power.
“There are enough off-ramps, that if we feel uncomfortable we
can get off,”
said Healdsurg Vice Mayor Gary Plass.
Plass said that the Healdsburg city council would follow the
process closely, but that the time had come to work on an
ordinance. “It’s time to move forward,” he said.
Details of the ban—such as whether to establish a fee on paper
bags, how to enforce it, and a proposed timeline—have not yet been
determined.
“We’re just seeing which way to go. We haven’t figured out all
the rules yet,” Mikus said. “All of the cities want to continue to
be updated, and they don’t want to sign off until they see a final
product.”
The estimated cost of a California Environmental Quality Act
review for a proposed bag ban is in the low six figures. A
countywide ordinance would save each city from each having to
pursue a separate CEQA review. It would also respond to industry
concerns—expressed at a bag forum held in February and organized by
citizens—about facing different regulations in each city.
“The expense is borne by us, and there’s no expense to the
cities,” Mikus explained.
The SCWMA does have funds available to support the CEQA
process.
“The key piece is that the money is from user fees. We’re not
out of the general fund in the county. These fees are supposed to
be used for waste diversion,” Mikus said.
Mikus noted that SCWMA has studied the history of plastic bag
bans in California, to gauge which strategies are most likely to
stand up in court.
 “We’ve had a wait and see attitude because some jurisdictions
were tackling the issue, and some were successful, and some were
not. Basically the formula that we’ve seen that seems to have the
most likelihood of success – and by success we mean surviving any
legal challenges – is to ban plastic, put a fee on paper, and go
through the CEQA process,” Mikus said.
Mikus will be meeting with the cities of Rohnert Park and Santa
Rosa in September, and hopes to hold stakeholder meetings in each
city sometime this fall.
Lynda Hopkins can be reached at Ly***@hb*****.com.