A proposal by Republic Services of Phoenix to buy, reopen and operate Sonoma County?s troubled Mecham Road landfill could set off fierce debate that could extend to potential competition with the county?s largest trash hauler and rates paid by thousands of homeowners.
The county will present the proposed contract Wednesday at a Board of Supervisors? hearing. For two years, county officials have been negotiating with as many as eight companies to sell the landfill because of huge environmental clean-up costs.
One of those rejected suitors, North Bay Corp., currently holds most of the trash hauling contracts in the county. It is certain to be a major opponent of the landfill sale because Republic has sizeable resources to operate its own hauling operation in competition with North Bay?s trash trucks.
Republic Services is one of the nation?s largest solid waste processors with 34,000 employees, 400 hauling companies and 213 landfills. In California, Republic operates landfills in Richmond, Livermore, Pittsburg, Manteca, Milpitas and Half Moon Bay.
Under the proposal, Republic would pay Sonoma County about $2.7 million annually in royalties. It also would assume responsibility for resolving environmental problems at the site, which the Regional Water Quality Control Board ordered closed in 2004 to prevent groundwater contamination. Republic is committed to making facility improvements up to $9.5 million.
Currently, North Bay Corp. and several other smaller companies collect trash, yard waste and material for recycling and deliver it to the central landfill. After that, the garbage is hauled by truck to out-of-county dumps in the East Bay and Solano County.
Board chairman Paul Kelley said debate will include questions whether Republic will be able to obtain state permits to reopen the landfill and whether a county landfill site is the environmentally sound solution to hauling trash out-of-county.
?The key will also be whether all the cities agree to participate by sending their trash to the reopened landfill,? Kelley said. ?It has to have the commitment of the cities or it won?t work.?
Former west county supervisor Ernie Carpenter criticized the proposed landfill sale as ?full of unenforceable ideas that amount to a whitewash of their attempt to get out of the landfill business.? Carpenter has been a persistent critic of the county?s closed door negotiations on the landfill sale.
?It think this will lead to the meltdown of the entire trash system,? Carpenter said. ?They have thrown up their hands and are trying to turn it over to a national firm without any guarantees that collection rates will stay low, that transfer stations will stay open or Republic will even fix the landfill.?
Currently, Petaluma is the only city that trucks its garbage to a northern Marin County processing site. The cost for dumping trash at a reopened central landfill would be about $12 a ton cheaper if all cities, including Petaluma, participate, according to a county transportation department analysis of prospective garbage collection rates.
The debate over sale of the landfill could mimic the mid-1990s fury over the county?s decision to cease operating Community Hospital and, instead, contract publicly guaranteed health services to Sutter Health, a Sacramento-based non-profit corporation.
Sonoma County, like other government entities, has moved to contract out services such as management recruiting, delivery of drug and alcohol rehabilitation, legal advice, traffic studies and environmental reviews on projects.
The full text of hundreds of pages of documents related to the county?s proposed ?divestiture of solid waste assets? is available at the county?s Transportation and Public Works website. The address is: www.sonoma-county.org/tpw/documents.htm.
The hearing on the Republic proposal will be held from 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesday at the board chambers. Other hearings are likely.
Under a proposed timetable, county officials would seek trash flow commitments from city governments in the fall and Republic would seek to reopen the landfill next spring. Cities would be required to send their waste to Republic?s reopened landfill for a 20-year period.
In weighing the proposed landfill sale, the public works department analysis concludes that reopening the Mecham Road site would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by eliminating out-of-county truck hauling. However, it also notes that relinquishing control over the landfill may raise concerns about future garbage collection rates.
Other elements of the proposal include:
Sale of the central landfill includes the Annapolis and Sonoma transfer stations. However, the Guerneville and Healdsburg transfer station would be operated by Republic under a 75-year agreement. And after five years, Republic can close all but one facility if minimum operating requirements aren?t met.
Republic is committed to establish a Material Recovery Facility at the landfill to process commercial solid waste, construction and demolition materials.
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