Sonoma County compost operation now at pivotal point

Supporters of the imperiled Sonoma Compost Company are expected to turn out in force Wednesday for a decision that they say could spell the end of Sonoma County’s primary composting facility, located atop the county landfill west of Cotati.

The decades-old operation could be forced to close as soon as June 1 because Sonoma Compost officials say they cannot meet an October deadline - spurred by a federal Clean Water Act lawsuit - aimed at halting pollution into a nearby creek.

Representatives of the compost company said they were preparing this week for the possible closure while lobbying county officials to keep the green waste handler in business while it finds a new long-term location.

“We’re going to have to stop taking material by June if they tell us we have to be out by October, when the rainy season officially starts,” said Pam Davis, general manager for Sonoma Compost. “We’re moving forward with a new site, but that is a couple years away, so our biggest challenges right now are with the current composting site.”

Scores of Sonoma Compost supporters, including representatives of environmental groups and farming interests, are expected to turn out Wednesday at a meeting of the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency that Davis said could result in a decision that would effectively shutter the compost operation.

Waste officials were tight-lipped this week about the scope of their discussion and its implications for the fate of Sonoma Compost. Officially, the waste agency board is set to discuss measures the operation is undertaking to stem the discharge of compost wastewater into a nearby creek during storm surges.

If forced to close down, compost officials said the county’s green waste - Sonoma Compost handles about 110,000 tons a year - will have to be trucked away to various locations, including sites in Vacaville, Richmond or Mendocino County. Davis said that switch would likely increase costs for hauling green waste - raising rates for curbside and self-haul customers - and push up compost costs for consumers.

The pivotal point comes as Sonoma Compost representatives are now publicly stating that they will not be able to meet their Oct. 1 deadline to build a $1.6 million overflow pond aimed at catching rainwater draining off piles at the 25-acre site and into the Stemple Creek.

The discharge is at issue in a Clean Water Act lawsuit brought by a group of neighbors that want the operation shut down and relocated. Water quality regulators took notice of the same issue last year and ordered the county - which owns the 170-acre landfill - to end the creek discharges or face fines of $10,000 a day. The Waste Management Agency oversees the compost operation and would be on the hook to compensate the county for any fines.

Compost officials have said their main fix - the new catchment pond - has been unworkable because the site contains sensitive habitat for the endangered California tiger salamander. Other costs, including the outhaul of wastewater by tanker trucks and studies of alternative sites to house a county composting facility, have complicated current operations, Davis said.

Sonoma Compost officials have proposed scaling back the volume of compost handled at the site while continuing to truck wastewater to regional treatment plants.

“If we have to start outhauling (compost), not only is the cost going to be exorbitant, but there’s going to be increased greenhouse gas emissions associated with all those trips,” Davis said. The company currently diverts about 10 percent of its green waste for processing at other sites outside of the county.

An online petition seeking to keep the compost operation in business has amassed more than 2,000 signatures in support, and nearly 100 people - adorned with “Save Sonoma Compost” buttons - aired their concerns at last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

“I’m concerned Sonoma Compost is going to either be put out of business or be taken over by another company that doesn’t have the same kind of ethics,” said Ursula Schnell, who filled her pool with dirt yesterday, and covered it with two feet of organic matter from Sonoma Compost. “The other thing I really love is that all their stuff is from here, it’s made here, and it’s delivered here.”

On the other side is a group of residents in the nearby Happy Acres subdivision who want the compost operation gone.

Happy Acres resident Roger Larsen, who spearheaded the Clean Water Act lawsuit last August against the county, the waste agency and Sonoma Compost, said he became disturbed when he realized rainwater was hitting compost piles, then overflowing holding ponds into Stemple Creek. He said odors from the site also are a chronic nuisance, harming property values in the area.

“This has been going on for years. They’re dumping millions of gallons of polluted wastewater into the creek during storms, and no one is doing anything about it,” Larsen said. “This site is not suitable for a composting operation, it was always supposed to be temporary.”

State water regulators have so far not levied any fines or penalties because the compost company has an accepted plan aimed at halting future overflows.

“We know the ponds have overflowed once or twice this past winter,” said Diana Henrioulle, a senior engineer with the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. “But we have a limited number of staff, and we have higher priority violations. With the compost site, we’ve been seeing progress in minimizing their discharge.”

The Board of Supervisors strongly endorsed retaining local composting in the county’s 2013 deal that this year privatized operation of the landfill while retaining public ownership of the site. Supervisors noted that organic matter is a valuable resource for large agricultural operations, small-scale farmers, schools and residents seeking to purchase local compost to enrich their soil. But they also said they were troubled that Sonoma Compost has been polluting the creek for years.

“Part of my frustration is we’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars battling this lawsuit,” said Supervisor David Rabbitt, who has been critical of the composting operation in the past and whose district includes the site. The county’s legal costs to date are $375,000.

“We all want a local company to keep producing a high-quality product, but I think it’s important that we be responsible and environmentally compliant,” said Rabbitt. “We need to stop violating the Clean Water Act.”

Supervisor Shirlee Zane, Sonoma County’s representative on the Waste Management Agency, said she is troubled by the compost site’s current problems and sees significant financial hurdles for the business in the long term.

“No one wants to outhaul, but the question remains - who is going to write the check for the new $50 million site?” said Zane. “What’s going on there now is very serious. We need a new state-of-the-art facility that is going to contain the compost and not pollute water.”

The waste agency has been stalled for several years in its decision about what type of new facility it should build and where it should build it. The top two choices include a smaller site at the county landfill and a location east of Petaluma at the intersection of Adobe Road and Stage Gulch Road. Rabbitt and Zane have indicated they would oppose the Petaluma site and Davis has signaled that the county landfill location is preferred by Sonoma Compost.

“It makes sense to keep it at the landfill. That’s where the garbage is coming anyway,” Davis said.

Zane said the Board of Supervisors has acknowledged community concerns about closing Sonoma Compost. She said those concerns were aired again when the Board of Supervisors signed off on the $650 million deal to turn over landfill operations to the Arizona-based garbage company Republic Services.

“Under the agreement with the county and the cities, we said that Republic - if they were going to operate the facility - would have to first negotiate in good faith with the present subcontractor, which is Sonoma Compost,” Zane said. “That answers the question that many people are raising right now.”

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