Future of Sonoma Compost in limbo as pivotal settlement deal advances

Government officials overseeing Sonoma County’s largest compost production facility voted behind closed doors Wednesday to advance a settlement deal that could shut down the green waste operation at the county landfill.

Representatives for the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency declined to elaborate on the vote, at a regular monthly meeting, or provide any details on the settlement deal, including its implications for Sonoma Compost Company. The officials, including the agency’s attorney and its executive director, said they would only make the agreement public once it was finalized with other parties in an ongoing Clean Water Act lawsuit targeting the compost operation. That step could come as soon as today, without any additional meeting of the agency’s 10-member board, according to the agency attorney, Ethan Walsh.

“We’ll disclose what the vote was and the substance of any action taken after we get to a final decision,” Walsh said. “We don’t have a final agreement yet. My goal is to get it wrapped up by the end of the day.”

Sonoma Compost officials said Wednesday’s meeting represented a pivotal moment in the business’ uncertain future. Pending outcome of the settlement deal, the operation could be forced to stop intake of material by June 1 and shut down by October, requiring all of the county’s yard waste to be hauled out of the area. Scores of company supporters assembled at Santa Rosa City Hall for the public hearing, where three dozen speakers, including representatives of influential farming and environmental interests, urged officials to maintain the decades-long operation.

“We are a county of locavores - our food, our wine and our compost,” said Hillary Smith, a county resident. “Please do everything you can to save Sonoma Compost.”

The public comments lasted nearly two hours. Afterward, the 10-member board, made up of elected and appointed city and county officials, convened in private to consider the Clean Water Act lawsuit and the settlement deal.

The outcome of that discussion, including the apparent decision to advance the settlement, which agency officials insisted was not a “reportable action” under the state’s open meeting laws, left many involved or watching the long-running dispute in the dark.

“I wish I knew where this was going,” said Will Bakx, who founded Sonoma Compost with his partner Alan Siegle in 1993. “It does not look very promising, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

The meeting came 10 months after a group of neighbors who live in a subdivision near the Central Landfill west of Cotati sued the county, the Waste Management Agency and Sonoma Compost. The lawsuit takes aim specifically at polluted stormwater runoff from the compost site that neighbors say has overflown catchment ponds for years and harmed nearby Stemple Creek.

But the Happy Acres resident who has spearheaded the legal fight has been outspoken about the group’s broader intent: to force the compost operation to shut down at its present site and relocate if it is to stay in business long term.

“I’m really frustrated,” Roger Larsen said Wednesday. “My whole neighborhood is in agreement, and we’re upset that Sonoma Compost has been allowed to pollute the water for so many years.”

Settlement talks between the parties are still underway, according to the County Counsel’s Office and Waste Management Agency officials. Any settlement would have to be signed off by the judge overseeing the federal case and a representative with the Environmental Protection Agency, said Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Susan Gorin and others involved in the lawsuit.

The Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 in a closed-door session Tuesday to advance the settlement deal and follow the Waste Management Agency’s lead, according to Verne Ball, deputy county counsel. Ball and county officials would not elaborate on the settlement terms.

Larsen said he could not discuss details of the negotiations, and added that he hasn’t heard anything yet that would satisfy his concerns, which also include complaints about odors from the site.

“My problem is that the Central Landfill site is not appropriate - environmentally or economically - for Sonoma Compost,” Larsen said.

Pam Davis, the Sonoma Compost general manager, said the company is working with the North Coast water quality regulators to reduce - and eventually eliminate - the stormwater overflows. Water quality regulators have cited progress on the issue, and they have not imposed any fines or penalties on the county as yet.

“If this were a clean water issue, this would be resolved already,” Davis said. “This is about a group of neighbors who want to shut us down, and the Clean Water Act is just their tool. It breaks my heart to think this program might go away.”

Sonoma Compost, a contractor to the Waste Management Agency, has drawn wide support from customers and allies in the business sector and among environmental groups. In addition to the lawsuit, the company faces the costly question of where and if it will be able to build a new long-term facility. The waste agency has been wrestling with the issue for years and is expected to choose a site next month.

Wednesday’s closed-door decision raised broader questions about public transparency at the agency, with officials asserting confidentiality over a decision they insisted was not final, though their attorney said several times in an interview that a vote took place.

“I’m not allowed to speak about it, since it was during closed session,” said Henry Mikus, the agency’s executive director. “It’s still a work in progress.”

California’s open meeting laws, known as the Brown Act, require government bodies that take final action in close-door sessions to report that action in public.

Cherokee Melton, a staff attorney with the First Amendment Project, an Oakland-based nonprofit organization that advocates for freedom of information, said that waste agency appears to be exploiting a provision of the law that leaves those public disclosures open to some interpretation when dealing with pending litigation and settlement deals.

Agency officials, acting on legal guidance, steadfastly invoked that shield Wednesday, refusing to discuss the settlement until a final accord has been reached.

“We can’t talk about anything,” said Windsor Town Councilwoman Deb Fudge, who serves on the agency’s board.

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