Sonoma County's troubled central landfill again will take center stage Tuesday as county supervisors are set to award contracts for the short- and long-term reopening of the shuttered site.
The first of those deals calls for a limited, temporary resumption of waste disposal at the landfill west of Cotati. It also includes renewing current trash collection services at four transfer stations, plus hauling and waste disposal at a landfill outside Sonoma County.
A county staff report released Thursday recommended awarding that highly sought-after contract — for up to four years and worth about $50 million — to its current holder, North Bay Corp., part of the locally based Ratto Group of Companies. The company's current deal expires at the end of August.
The second contract would cover the permit-process work necessary for the landfill's long-term reopening. Staff members are recommending that it be awarded to SCS Engineers, an environmental contractor with local headquarters in Petaluma. The firm's bid for work estimated by county officials to take two years was $425,000.
Final decisions on the recipient of either contract and their terms rests with the supervisors Tuesday.
The contracts are the latest effort in a now three-year search by county officials for a way to reopen the 39-year-old central landfill. The Mecham Road facility was closed in 2005 following the discovery that a damaged dump protective liner might lead to ground water contamination.
Late last year, supervisors failed to agree on a proposed sale of the landfill to an Arizona company that intended to reopen the dump. Since then, the county has come under renewed pressure from state waste regulators to close the dump for good.
State Assemblymen Wesley Chesbro, D-Arcata, and Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, have intervened with regulators on behalf of the county and asked for more time, county officials said.
The contract provision calling for an 18-month resumption of landfill use for up to 150,000 tons of waste also is intended stave off the state's closure order, officials said.
During that window, the permitting process called for in the second contract could take place, officials said.
"We believe that both of those (steps) need to happen at the same time," said Phil Demery, Sonoma County's public works director.
Next up would be the start of an estimated $70 million
retrofit and expansion of the landfill. Together with the permitting, the work could result within two years in the the resumption of long-term operations, Demery said.
That massive undertaking would be paid for by a roughly $12 annual increase in household garbage bills. But it depends on so many variables that county officials are cautious about green-lighting either short- or long-term reopening of the landfill.
To begin with, county staff are recommending that supervisors make both options
contingent upon approval from state waste and water quality regulators. Both agencies have been cooperative of late, but their approval is still not guaranteed, Demery said.
A decision on long-term operation of the landfill would also depend on:
An ongoing study of the cost of operating the landfill, compared with other disposal options. Waste from the county and eight of its cities is now collected at five transfer stations
and trucked to Solano County. Those services will cost the county about $12.6 million this fiscal year.
The study will weigh the cost of the landfill retrofit and its estimated lifetime — at least 14 years, and
perhaps longer if recycling is increased — versus the possibility of increased fuel prices and diminished landfill capacity associated with out-of-county disposal. Other options under study include carting waste away by rail. The study is due by the end of summer.
Agreement of the cities to commit their waste to a reopened central landfill. Currently, all but Petaluma participate in the county's out-of-county hauling
contract. Petaluma sends waste to nearby Redwood Landfill in Novato.
Ability of the county and cities to change the way they recover disposal costs. Recyclables, green waste, construction materials and other waste converted to energy currently are not included in the weighed, landfill-destined waste the county uses to set its garbage fees. As is, any proportional increase in non-landfill waste — currently at 66 percent of the total waste stream and rising because of recycling efforts — results in decreased revenue to the county, officials said. A switch factoring in recyclable and reusable waste would have "negligible effects" on household bills, Demery said.
Of all those variables, the cities' commitment to a reopened landfill is the biggest unknown, officials acknowledged.
The city of Santa Rosa has not yet considered its stance on the issue. But officials from Santa Rosa and other cities, plus some local business and environmental groups, were among a loud contingent opposing sale of the landfill last year. The environmental groups opposed the sale partly on the grounds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by hauling away local waste.
"I imagine we'll support the cheapest, most environmentally friendly solution," said Santa Rosa Vice Mayor Gary Wysocky, who sits on the county and cities' solid waste advisory group. "And it makes sense to me that the less you travel, the cheaper it is."
Local opposition to reopening the landfill has been limited, aid county officials and others familiar with the issue.
Supervisor Mike Kerns, whose district includes the dump, said residents of the Happy Acres subdivision near the landfill have voiced concerns about trash, truck traffic and odor over the years.
Both Kerns and Supervisor Shirlee Zane, who heads the waste advisory group, expressed their support last week for reopening the landfill.
"It's an option that the community really wants to pursue," Zane said.
Both supervisors said, however, that Tuesday's meeting could nevertheless focus on the more pressing issue before the board: awarding the lucrative contract for waste-hauling services.
The bid competition — between four large garbage contractors, the Ratto Group among them — and the subsequent selection process have all been subject to a heavy amount of lobbying, county officials and contractors acknowledged last week.
Board chairwoman Valerie Brown expressed concern about the pressure from the outset.
"This process is very troubling to me," she said last month when supervisors accepted a report on the contractors' bids.
Since then the contractors "have pretty much all contacted me," Zane said
. "What I've said to them is that they could have 15 minutes."
She said the process has been eye-opening. "Quite frankly," she said, "garbage is big business."
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