County trash deal dumped

Fifth District Supervisor Efren Carrillo cast the vote putting a
nail in the coffin of a proposed deal to outsource the county’s
garbage to an Arizona waste management corporation on Tuesday,
sending Public Works staff back to the drawing board to find
another solution to an ever-increasing problem.
“The basic financing structure (of the agreement) has some
flaws,” Carrillo said. “It needs four votes to move forward, but
based on this agreement it will not get the four votes it
needs.”
Carrillo’s vote came after two hours of public comment by a
gathering of about 100 citizens, mostly there to criticize the
deal, even after Fourth District Supervisor and Board Chair Paul
Kelley informed them that the hearing wasn’t open, and the comments
would have no effect on the board’s decision.
Carrillo thought the deal would tie the county’s hands in the
future when new technologies may be available to address the
problem. He was also concerned about the loss of the Sonoma Compost
Company, which he called “an important part of the waste
stream.”
Transportation and Public Works Director Phil Demery and his
staff have been working on the proposal for more than two years,
and the process predates the current makeup of the board, as
Carrillo and 3rd District Supervisor Shirlee Zane have only been
serving for 10 months.
Demery said that his staff had modified the agreement to be more
in line with the desires of the public, including keeping the
compost company open “until they need to expand the landfill,” not
allowing transfer stations to be closed without permission, meeting
climate protection goals, and prohibiting putting recyclables in
landfill or closing the Materials Recovery Facility.
“If divestiture is delayed, we’ll have to close the landfill,”
he said. “If you want another option, it’s too late.”
The deal would have turned over the Central Landfill, and four
other transfer stations located in Sonoma, Healdsburg, Guerneville
and Annapolis to Republic Services, of Phoenix, AZ for 20 years,
and paid the county about $2.7 million per year.
Republic would have taken on $40 to $50 million in liabilities,
as well as shelling out $70 million to repair a flawed liner that
was damaged in 2003, and led to the dump’s closure by the Regional
Water Quality Control Board in 2005.
The county subsequently entered into “outhaul” agreements that
will expire next year.
In 2006, the board ordered staff to investigate “divestiture,”
and the next year four companies — USA Waste, Allied Waste,
Republic Services and Waste Connections — entered into the bidding
process.
In 2008, the Board received proposals from Allied Waste and USA
Waste, but Allied Waste then merged with Republic Services, which
became the surviving corporate entity.
Healdsburg councilmember Mike McGuire, who spoke as a private
citizen, voiced his concerns about the lack of “formal direction”
and exclusion of the cities in the process. He pointed out that the
cities have to be on board in order to ensure a sufficient volume
of waste.
“You need to bring the cities in before you make the decision,
not at the end with $70 million on the line,” McGuire said.
The deal received much of its criticism due to Republic Services
apparently bad environmental record.
Sebastopol resident Janice Mathis was concerned that Republic
would raise rates, leading to more garbage being dumped on the
roads.
Mathis said that she had “Googled” Republic, lawsuits and
consumer complaints, giving her more than 20 pages of results.
“Republic has a worse environmental record than Exxon-Mobile,
and you have not done your homework,” she said.
Mathis found an unlikely champion in Zane, who sees the
“fundamental flaw” with Republic is that it is inconsistent with
strong environmental policy. Zane said that the only public support
she received for the deal was from an official in San Diego, who
had been dealing with Republic since 2002.
She found “serious violations,” and that Republic was charged
with exceeding daily dumping allowances more than 100 times in that
time.
“(We would be) outsourcing something our county has spent a lot
of time and money to create and that’s our environmental record,”
Zane said as she voted “no.”
Representatives from several cities were in attendance. Windsor
councilmember Debora Fudge — who also spoke as a private citizen —
took exception to the idea that the public was uninformed about the
issue, saying that she would not support a deal that “takes us
backwards in relationship to sustainability.”
Supervisors Mike Kern and Valerie Brown reluctantly voted in
favor in order to “keep the process moving forward,” but Kern
admitted that the process was done in large part “behind closed
doors,” and said the cities should have been more involved.
“This is a difficult issue, and we’ve been dealing with it for
years,” he said. “This is but the first step and we will have the
opportunity to collaborate.”
But Kelley, who represents the north county cities including
Healdsburg, had the last word after the deal had been killed. He
thanked everyone for their input, but wasn’t very hopeful about the
future of garbage in the county.
Kelley said that ultimately, it will be the citizens of the
county who will suffer, and that negotiating with the state won’t
accomplish much.
“Closure will be expensive,” he said. “And parceling out
liabilities will be on the backs of the ratepayers and
taxpayers.”
“I hope those working with us come with a big checkbook,” he
added.