Counties, cities close on garbage agreements

Agreements between Sonoma County, most of its cities and the county’s private garbage contractor could be reached by November, concluding four years of negotiations and paving the way for completion of a multimillion-dollar expansion at the county’s central landfill on Mecham Road.

The final contract, approved last year by the Board of Supervisors, awarded the private, Arizona-based garbage company Republic Services a 25-year deal worth an estimated $650 million. The deal would send the bulk of the trash generated in Sonoma County to the 170-acre central landfill west of Cotati. Plans have been in limbo, however, as cities settle a separate but related issue dealing with liability concerns at the county’s dump sites.

The long-term strategy for the landfill requires most of the county’s cities to sign agreements should anything go wrong. Negotiations have stalled since 2010, as cities grappled with liability concerns over operations at the central landfill and four of the county’s seven now-closed landfills.

Final contracts would send most of the county’s trash to the 43-year-old central landfill. At present, about half of the county’s 240,000 tons of waste collected each year is trucked to another landfill in Contra Costa County, county officials said.

Meanwhile, significant upgrades are on hold - including an expanded recycling facility as well as retrofitting three holding areas with protective lining underground, to prevent pollution and groundwater contamination. The expansion will allow the site to handle another 30 years of refuse, officials said.

Sonoma County, which owns the 400 acres the landfill sits on, and eight of its nine cities are poised to conclude negotiations by Nov. 1, said Susan Klassen, the county’s transportation and public works director.

“The cities are ready to approve their waste delivery agreements,” Klassen said. “They’ll now pay a fee when they drop off their garbage - it’ll all go into a pot to cover liability concerns.”

County officials said they need a little more time to reach a deal, however.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors is expected to grant extra time and extend current temporary contracts allowing operations to continue at the central landfill for an additional month while city councils join the trash-hauling partnership. Supervisors are also slated to extend on an interim basis a separate contract with the Ratto Group of Companies, which contracts with the county to haul trash to the central landfill.

So far, four cities have signed on, including Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Healdsburg and Sebastopol. Four others - Rohnert Park, Cotati, Windsor and Cloverdale - are expected to join them by the end of October, Klassen said.

Petaluma has sent its trash to Marin County since 2004, when the city stopped using the Mecham Road landfill.

“We’re halfway there,” said Supervisor Shirlee Zane, a former member of the Solid Waste Advisory Group, a body of elected officials from throughout Sonoma County who halted privatization of the landfill. “We decided we wanted local control.”

Previously, Sonoma County attempted to sell the landfill entirely to Republic Services after it was closed in 2005 by state water regulators who cited water quality problems because of contaminants leaking from the site. But county supervisors retreated following protests from the public and other elected officials. The private company has since operated the landfill on an interim basis.

Supervisors in April 2013 unanimously approved an agreement that permanently privatized the operation of the county’s central landfill, but kept the site in public ownership. That contract, as well as expansion needed to keep the landfill from running out of room depends, however, on cities committing their garbage to the 170-acre landfill for it to take effect.

“We have to keep a minimum amount of garbage coming in,” said Rick Downey, the Sonoma County operations manager for Republic Services.

Trash picked up from bins on the street is trucked to the transfer stations in the county that once operated as landfills - in the cities of Sonoma and Healdsburg, on Roblar Road west of Cotati and at a dump near the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport. Trash is then transported in bulk by trucks, contracted by the Ratto Group of Companies, to the central landfill.

“Material basically comes into the old landfills, it’s dumped on the floor, then transferred to the central landfill by Ratto,” Downey said. “It’s just much more efficient than lots of individual trucks going one at a time.”

Three of Sonoma County’s other landfills - in Annapolis, Guerneville and Occidental - are no longer used.

Final approvals have been stalled over debates about who - the county and cities - should assume liability costs should Republic Services ever go out of business. Now, it appears cities have agreed to sign on and share responsibility with the county, and pay $9.25 per ton of trash deposited at the landfill and the four transfer stations to be set aside in a long-term rainy day fund, estimated at about $50 million for future claims.

Republic Services would take on responsibilities over liability at the central landfill, and the county would assume liability at each of the seven shuttered landfills, Klassen said.

Elected officials throughout the county said they’re ready to finalize a long-awaited deal.

“These issues have been brewing for years,” said Windsor Town Councilwoman Deb Fudge. “But it seems like now, everybody is breathing a collective sigh of relief. We’re ready to sign off.”

The Windsor City Council plans to ratify contracts Sept. 17. Rohnert Park officials said they plan to take up the issue sometime in October. Officials from Cotati and Cloverdale were not available for comment.

“Once all the cities have signed these agreements, we can put this whole thing to bed,” Downey said.

You can reach Staff Writer Angela Hart at 526-8503 or angela.hart@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ahartreports.