Sonoma County to negotiate large compost facility near Santa Rosa

Sonoma County waste officials voted Wednesday to begin negotiations with a group seeking to build a $50 million composting facility southwest of Santa Rosa, a decision hailed as an important step toward restoring the county’s ability to turn organic waste into a valuable commodity.

The board of the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency agreed to begin exclusive negotiations with Renewable Sonoma, which plans an ambitious green-waste-to-?energy plant north of, and integrated with, the city’s Laguna Wastewater Treatment Plant on Llano Road.

The company, which is owned by the same people who operated Sonoma Compost atop the county landfill before it was shut down over wastewater violations, emerged as the front-runner after a competitive process that lasted a year and a half.

While the company’s environmental record made Santa Rosa City Councilman John Sawyer concerned about “moving forward with a company that had some blemishes,” the majority of board members expressed strong support for its bid.

“What’s important to me is that we get to zero waste in Sonoma County,” Windsor Town Councilwoman Deb Fudge said as she stressed the importance of returning composting to a county spending $5 million per year to haul it elsewhere.

Renewable Sonoma earned praise from agency staff and others for its understanding of the county’s compost needs, particularly the importance of an educational campaign to keep people from throwing garbage into green waste bins.

Ron Bartholomew said he was impressed with how the company had multiple booths at the recent Gravenstein Apple Fair educating attendees and vendors about such issues, including using compostable food containers.

“I think what separates Renewable Sonoma from the other applicants is the commitment and implementation of educating the public on the importance of reducing valuable green waste from the landfill,” Bartholomew said.

The company also benefited from well-organized and relentless opposition to a competing idea of building a less expensive facility on a former dairy east of Petaluma, which local residents denounced as a horrible location.

Traffic on Stage Gulch Road, where Ukiah’s Cold Creek Compost sought to expand on a 390-acre former dairy, is so busy and dangerous that adding additional trucks to the roads would only worsen the situation.

Neighbor Guido Murnig described how he and family members have witnessed multiple crashes in the area over the years, including one that killed his 18-year-old son on Lakeville Highway.

“Whoever did your traffic study should go back to school,” Murnig said.

Renewable Sonoma also enjoyed strong support from the local agricultural community, with farmers and ranchers lamenting the closure of the former composting operation in 2015 and praising the value of the compost the facility produced.

Michael Murphy, founder of the Sonoma County Horse Council, said the county’s 27,000 horses “defecate cubic feet every day,” a volume that he said from the podium at the Santa Rosa City Council Chambers “would fill this room.”

That makes it imperative that the new facility accept equine manure, which Renewable Sonoma has said it would.

The proposal endured its share of criticism, however, most notably from Roger Larsen, who sued Sonoma Compost and Sonoma County, alleging systemic pollution of Stemple Creek by the former facility atop the Central Landfill.

Larsen said he was “totally dismayed” the agency would consider doing business again with the Sonoma Compost principals, Will Bakx and Alan Siegle, and advocated for the east Petaluma site, which a previous but now dated analysis identified as the prime composting location in the county.

“Haven’t you been embarrassed enough?” Larsen said. “Come to your senses! Because it’s going to be the same issues. You’re going to have the same problems. And you’re going to end up in the same place.”

Competitors also skewered Renewable Sonoma’s proposal as too expensive. Allan Tose, a Sonoma real estate agent advocating for the east Petaluma site, claimed the costs would be $52 million higher than Cold Creek’s plan over the 20-year life of the contract.

“But nobody seems to care,” Tose said in frustration.

The true costs of the Renewable Sonoma proposal, however, have yet to be nailed down. While it is the most expensive option in some scenarios, if the facility grows to accept 100,000 tons of material, the numbers improve, according to agency staff.

Ratepayers could pay between 43 cents and $1.70 more per month under Renewable Sonoma’s plan. Bakx argued it could drop further as negotiations with the city mature over such issues as the lease of the city’s 13-acre property on Llano Road and the use of the biogas captured from the composting by the city’s treatment plant turbines.

A number of other issues still need to be resolved, however, including traffic impacts on Llano Road and whether the facility will accept compostable food containers, which several speakers urged the board to require. The number of such issues gave board chairman Henry Mikus pause, and he cast the lone no vote in the 9-1 decision.

The agency will now begin negotiations with Renewable Sonoma’s team, which hopes to be operational by 2021.

Issues involving the proposed location on city property, in particular, will require additional public decisions before the proposal can move forward, said Patrick Carter, the agency’s executive director.

“Santa Rosa is going to have a couple of opportunities to look at this from multiple angles,” Carter said.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.