Dutra Material's controversial plan to erect an asphalt plant across the Petaluma River from Shollenberger Park appears doomed to eventual defeat after three Sonoma County supervisors declared Tuesday evening they would not support construction of the facility.
Although the board postponed a final vote until July 21, a majority on the five-member panel said the asphalt plant required jumping through too many regulatory hoops and relying on company compliance with 144 conditions, too much to justify approval.
The decision came as a shock to many in the audience, which had soared to more than 200 people early in the hearing that lasted nearly five hours. At the hearing, 43 people delivered often-emotional and often-off-topic testimony at the session, which was supposed to center on noise and health issues that supervisors had raised in February.
Back then, board members, on a 4-1 vote, gave Dutra's asphalt plant tentative approval, but they said they wanted more information about noise levels, release of toxic substances into the air, truck traffic estimates and river navigation problems created by sending rock upriver by barge.
But after listening to testimony and reviewing new information in a planning staff report, supervisors Valerie Brown and Efren Carrillo said they were joining Shirlee Zane in opposing the project.
"We have to change the general plan, the noise ordinances, the urban growth boundary and go against the (opposition of the) city of Petaluma," Zane said. "With 144 conditions, I don't believe we have the staff to monitor it."
Zane, Brown and Carrillo said their main concern was possible adverse affects on residents' health caused by toxins released into the air by plant operations.
"I feel that this is too much to ask," Carrillo said.
Despite rejection, south county supervisor Mike Kerns, who represents the area, asked that county planners again revise Dutra's project to add several new conditions for further consideration when the proposal for a general plan amendment returns for a final vote July 21.
"I have to rely on facts and evidence and there has not been any evidence to support toxins and threats to health," Kerns said. "Obviously, counting today, it does not look good for approval."
Board Chairman Paul Kelley, who said he still supports the project, recommended that staff also prepare a resolution rejecting the project, saying, "I am reading that the board will not support it when the project comes back."
About half the speakers argued that the plant would be a blight on a gateway entrance to Sonoma County, would place an industrial plant on the border of Petaluma's urban growth boundary and would flout what they claimed was overwhelming opposition of Petaluma residents.
But just as many speakers argued in favor of the plant, saying it would mean valuable construction jobs, would provide a local source for asphalt for use in Highway 101 expansion and would be more environmentally sound than transporting aggregate by truck.
"In an economic downturn, this will make a better, cheaper product for everybody," said construction company president Richard Ghilotti. "The truck is the big polluter on the roads right now."
Leticia Shiffrin, a Petaluma resident who lives in walking distance of Shollenberger Park, started a testy exchange picked up later by several speakers when she said she was fed up with "well-meaning but misinformed environmentalists running roughshod over the community."
Later, Petaluma resident Beverly Alexander responded that she was "tired of the lack of respect for environmentalists" whom she credited with preventing construction of a nuclear power plant at Bodega Head, establishing the Point Reyes National Seashore and enacting urban growth boundaries that limited housing sprawl.
Keith Woods, executive director of the North Coast Builders Exchange, caustically remarked that Dutra opponents "don't own the concept of environmentalism" when he argued that the plant was a pragmatic solution.
Petaluma resident Stan Gold criticized the proposal as an attempt "to bail out a company that made a bad decision" when Dutra sold its upriver asphalt plant site in 2004 for a residential development.
Betty Jo Garzelli responded that environmentalists were to blame for spreading "lots of misinformation and sheer hysteria" in their opposition. She said opposition "was a politically motivated attempt by environmentalists to take over in Petaluma at Dutra's expense."
The San Rafael-based construction materials company operated for 20 years at an upriver location and then for another three years nearby until the county shut it down last year for operating on an expired use permit. Because the proposed site is zoned for commercial use, approval of supervisors is needed because production of road construction material is an industrial use not allowed under the general plan.
You can reach Staff Writer Bleys W. Rose at 521-5431 or bleys.rose@pressdemocrat.com.
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