A good waste of energy
Future landfill-expansion workshops could focus on renewable wastes

by Peter Seidman, Pacific Sun Staff

Opponents of expanding Redwood Landfill say the permit process is an ideal opportunity to bring the issues of zero waste and sustainability to a public workshop.

Although opponents would prefer the workshop deal with topics like resource recovery and energy generation for the county as a whole, they also want to focus on problems they believe are inherent at the landfill site, which is just north of Novato. The opponents say that even if the landfill does not expand, environmental dangers exist at its current size and configuration. Redwood Landfill contests that assessment, saying no hazardous releases or other occurrences have taken place to put the surrounding environment at risk. Questions about noise from trucks, odors and other possible problems have been on the agenda of opponents to a landfill expansion. In addition, they cite hazards that could come from an earthquake and from sea-level rise due to global warming and the landfill’s location near San Pablo Bay.

All those issues–and more–are part of the deliberation over the landfill’s proposal to increase the amount of material it receives before it closes–which could be as soon as 2024. While those are the more tangible issues, proponents of zero waste and sustainability say other issues are perhaps more important than the single-focus question of whether the landfill should be allowed to expand.

The expansion proposal has been in the pipeline for years. In terms only a planner could love, “The Redwood Landfill Solid Waste Facilities Permit Draft Subsequent Environmental Impact report was released for public review and comment in July 2003.” That’s the opening of the “Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Report” for the expansion proposal. The language may be dry, but the report contains the kernels of the debate that has become the focus for Marin residents who want the county to make a stronger commitment toward reducing the amount of waste that ends up in Redwood Landfill and other waste depositories. Next month, the county is expected to release a health report that will take a look at the implications of the proposed expansion. After the release of the report, the county planning commission will deliberate the proposal. But planning commissioners will be bound to look at only strict legal and planning issues, not the more esoteric and amorphous issues such as whether an expanded landfill is a good thing or whether the county should reject an expansion because it runs counter to the county’s expressed interest in moving toward zero waste.

When opponents to the landfill expansion first organized, the aim was more or less single focus: stop the expansion. In the years since the landfill expansion entered the public arena, zero waste and sustainability have become increasingly more mainstream goals. At first, a group called No Wetlands Landfill Expansion was the lead agency, so to speak, in the opposition. The opposition to the landfill and the move toward sustainability, resource recovery and zero waste have coalesced into a somewhat informal conglomeration called the Green Coalition for Responsible Waste/Resource Management. The evolution is evident in the transformation. Groups affiliated with the Responsible Waste organization include, among many others, the Sierra Club Marin Group, Sustainable Novato, San Rafael and Petaluma, the Petaluma River Council, and No Wetlands Landfill Expansion.

“This is not just about Redwood Landfill,” says Bruce Baum of the Green Coalition. “We want to talk about re-thinking waste.” Opponents of the landfill, and proponents of looking at waste as a valuable resource rather than a material that must be disposed, want the county to hold a workshop during which the issues of landfill expansion and zero waste can take place in an open forum.

The idea of a workshop holds appeal, say county supervisors Judy Arnold and Charles McGlashan. But there’s a problem, they say. The supervisors, either individually or as a group, cannot hold a workshop before the planning commission deliberates the expansion issue. Redwood Landfill could construe a workshop held on that timetable as an attempt to influence planning commissioners. In addition, say Arnold and McGlashan, it’s a matter of propriety; an early workshop would step on the civic-process toes of the planning commission.

Christopher Gilkerson of No Wetlands Landfill Expansion says a workshop held before the planning commission takes up the landfill issue wouldn’t step on any civic toes. The planning commission must deal in strict legal and planning terms, he says, and the workshop would look at a broad range of zero waste and sustainability issues. “A workshop would look at alternatives (to the landfill expansion),” says Gilkerson, “and also would look at the sufficiency of any mitigation measures.”

Those measures that opponents say should be attached to the landfill proposal include requiring an independent monitor of the landfill site, banning green waste from the landfill and requiring more environmentally efficient composting. The opponents also would like the issue of financial assurances put on the table. The landfill says it has about $11 million in assurance money to pay for maintenance costs for 30 years after the landfill closes. Taking care of maintenance for those 30 years is a state requirement. Opponents of the expansion say it’s not enough. What happens if an earthquake or flood wreaks havoc on the landfill site in those 30 years? “We can’t let our kids and grandkids get stuck paying a massive clean-up bill,” states one of the Green Coalition’s four principles of its landfill position.

Those topics, as well as the broader issues of zero waste and sustainability would make a good agenda for a public workshop, says Arnold, whose district includes the landfill site. But, holding a workshop before the planning commission deliberates would be a mistake. First, she says, everyone should wait for the next step in the process. That’s expected to come next week, when the county Environmental Health Services Division will release its report regarding possible impacts from the landfill expansion. Then, the issue will go to the planning commission. People first need to know the information and outcome resulting from those two events. Then, the county Integrated Waste Management Board also must review the proposal. If the expansion proposal clears those hurdles, it goes back to the landfill and Waste Management, who will take it up to Sacramento for final approval. (It’s expected that if the proposal clears the hurdles in Marin, the state most likely would stamp it as approved.)

Holding a workshop before the report from health services gets released and before the planning commission meets would short-circuit the process, says Arnold. “I don’t think the board of supervisors should interfere in what the planning commission is going to be doing. I also think that holding a workshop before the planning commission meets would set expectations too high that the board of supervisors has some role in this, and we don’t.” But, she adds, holding a workshop after the planning commission meets “might prove to be helpful.”

McGlashan also thinks holding an early workshop would be a mistake “both legally and to the people to make clear just (which agency’s) decision matters. It would be totally confusing for the board to weigh in, either before or after the planning commission, as if we have any civil authority to do anything.” Rather than hosting a workshop as a board, he adds, one or more supervisors could help set up a workshop without formal county presence. Although it may not be a formal presence, having supervisors at a workshop would give them an opportunity to speak individually. And, says McGlashan, “It may give me and other supervisors an opportunity to say something to the integrated waste board if necessary. I don’t want to lose that chance, but we have received strong legal advice not to interfere with the process (as the board of supervisors).”

Holding a workshop after the planning commission meets is acceptable to Gilkerson, but he’s concerned about the timeline. The issues involved in the landfill expansion are technical and complicated; everyone needs ample opportunity to digest what comes out in the county’s health report as well as the responses contained in the final environmental impact report. Those responses are also are expected to be released shortly. And, says Gilkerson, planning a useful workshop takes time. He wants the county to refrain from moving the landfill expansion to the planning commission too quickly.

Baum and others in the Green Coalition want the county to expand its sustainability and resource recovery horizons, and they say the landfill expansion issue is an ideal starting point. The discussion about the environmental impact report “should be about risk management,” says Baum. The planning commission, the supervisors and the waste management board should be “looking at how we manage risk and why we take risks, as opposed to what’s good for this Texas corporation with a bundle of cash.” Waste Management is the largest company in its field in the country and among the largest in the world.

One of the conditions opponents of the expansion want the county to impose on Redwood Landfill is a mitigation fee on material the landfill accepts from outside the county. That addresses the concern that Waste Management will use the Redwood Landfill as a regional facility and not one for just Marin. The company has said it must accept material from outside the county for the landfill site to remain financially viable. OK, say opponents, but if that’s the case, the county should impose a fee of perhaps $8 a ton on material brought from outside the county. Money from that fee, notes Baum, could pay for a host of zero waste and sustainability programs.

The landfill says it already engages in many sustainability programs, including resource recovery and composting. But zero waste advocates say the company does nothing close to what should be taking place on the site. The landfill has said it will increase its resource recovery efforts, including a plan to generate electricity from methane gas, but only after it secures a successful outcome in the permit approval process for the expansion. “It’s kind of like a chicken and egg thing,” says Arnold.

Opponents of the expansion think the county should take control of the chicken and egg debate and impose conditions on the approval of the expansion. McGlashan says he’s not sure the county could legally impose the kind of conditions the landfill opponents want.

After first proposing a larger expansion, the landfill accepted a scaled down alternative, the one now under review. The alternative environmental impact report delineates a desire for a substantive change in the landfill’s operational goals, moving it from a dump to more of a resource recovery operation, a use never contemplated in the landfill’s first use permit granted in 1958. That change in use should necessitate a review of the landfill’s permit, opponents argued. But county counsel delivered an opinion that the county has no authority to reopen the use permit issue.

The current plan under review calls for allowing the landfill to increase the total capacity of material from 19.1 million cubic yards to 26.1 million cubic yards. That would allow the 222-acre site to remain open until 2024, maybe longer, according to Waste Management. The current plan under review calls for allowing the landfill to increase the total capacity of material from 19.1 million cubic yards to 26.1 million cubic yards. That would allow the 222-acre site to remain open until 2024, maybe longer, according to Waste Management. The expansion would add no additional area to the footprint of the landfill, but the sides of the landfill deposit would be steeper to accommodate the added material. The problems associated with a landfill–no matter what the size–next to creeks, sensitive environmental areas and in a flood plain continue to disturb opponents of any expansion.

But if the civic and governmental avenues open to opponents seem to be strewn with roadblocks, they do have one thing on their side: time. Since Waste Management first stood up and proposed expanding the Redwood Landfill site, global warming has become a common term, and the issues of sustainability and zero waste are on lips previously associated with naysayers.

“I am very enthusiastic about new technologies (that could be employed at the landfill) that will recover more resources,” Arnold notes, adding that the landfill “doesn’t want to introduce new plans” until it has the expansion process in the rear-view mirror. While opponents of the landfill expansion may not be as confortable as Arnold in accepting the landfill’s promises to employ new resource recovery strategies after it gets approval for expansion, they do know that new technologies could help the county divert material from the landfill. (That, however, still leaves open the issue of allowing the landfill to become a regional facility.)

Taking a wider view of the issue is an opportunity that almost everyone in the debate sees as a valuable goal. “The next trend that interests me the most,” says McGlashan, “is converting food waste to energy (and capturing methane to produce energy).” That’s particularly interesting to him as head of the county’s community aggregation effort, which could include a local energy production component. “There are hungry entrepreneurs looking to convert green waste and food waste. And the good news is that it’s a competitive market.”

Although the county may not be able to stop an expansion at the landfill, McGlashan says, it could “entice” waste haulers to divert material from the landfill to new entrepreneurial “energy guys.” McGlashan says the county might convince the landfill and Waste Management to get a piece of the new market “or else the new energy guys will scoop them. And that’s the power of the private sector.”

Contact the writer at peter@pseidman.com

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