Sludge Watch ==> Ventura County Calif- Plants to make new sludge disposal facility

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Here is a story about what Ventura County Calif is planning to with its 
sewer wastes now that Kern County is closing its doors to sludge.  It seems 
they want to dry it and also extract some landfill gas, and then put it in 
the dump.

Wouldn't it make more sense to contain the mercury, the greenhouse gases, 
and get more energy value from using it as fuel?  Often sludge doesn't make 
very good landfill cover. What other 'commercial uses' of this sludge does 
Ventura have in mind? One hardly dares imagine.


It makes sense to look at the Environment Impact Report (EIR) on this 
project.

...........................................................................................



http://www.santapaulatimes.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/11620/Toland:_Public_meeting_Wednesday_on_sludge_facility_Draft_EIR.html


Toland: Public meeting Wednesday on sludge facility Draft EIR

By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Published:  July 12, 2006

Although the state Integrated Waste Management Board was told in 2002 by a 
Ventura Regional Sanitation District representative that the Santa Clara 
River Valley communities had been notified about VRSD’s application, it’s 
recent news to most people that Toland Road Landfill is being targeted for a 
new sludge disposal facility.

By Peggy Kelly

Santa Paula Times

Although the state Integrated Waste Management Board was told in 2002 by a 
Ventura Regional Sanitation District representative that the Santa Clara 
River Valley communities had been notified about VRSD’s application, it’s 
recent news to most people that Toland Road Landfill is being targeted for a 
new sludge disposal facility.

The Draft Environmental Review of the proposed Toland Road Landfill 
Biosolids Facility and Electrical Generation Plant will be the focus of a 
meeting at VRSD offices Wednesday, July 12 at 10 a.m.

A one-hour long public information meeting will be held at VRSD offices, 
1001 Partridge Drive, Ventura.

The DEIR review period - when the draft document can be commented on in 
writing - will end July 19 at 5 p.m.

According to the DEIR up to 7,000 tons a month of 80 percent water/20 
percent solids sludge will be taken to the Toland Landfill, located mid-way 
between Santa Paula and Fillmore.

Although the DEIR notes that the project received “verbal support” from the 
cities of Santa Paula and Fillmore, the only time that the issue was 
addressed by the Santa Paula City Council was earlier this year.

Councilwoman Mary Ann Krause had requested an update after reading in a 
county newspaper that Toland was being considered for the sludge facility.

VRSD General Manager Mark Lawler made the presentation on biosolids handling 
to the City Council at the March 20 meeting.

In June Kern County approved a ballot measure to prohibit the spreading of 
“biosolids” i.e. sewage sludge on any land in unincorporated areas, 
including land owned by the City of Oxnard utilized by many Ventura County 
cities for sludge dumping.

The sludge, human waste that would be heated and treated at the proposed 
facility at Toland, would be used as a landfill cover or for commercial 
purposes according to the DEIR.

Treatment would be at 450 degrees and remaining water would be treated at 
the Toland site and again at a wastewater treatment plant.

End-dump trailers - enclosed and those covered with a tarp - would carry up 
to 22 tons of the sludge to the landfill.

The Sierra Club’s Los Padres Chapter has expressed concerns about the VRSD 
sludge plan, with Conservation Chairman Alan Sanders noting that the VRSD 
has to prove that the sludge toxins would not enter the water or food 
supply.

Although sludge dumping was not allowed when the controversial VRSD landfill 
expansion was approved in the 1990s, the agency applied for a state sludge 
permit in 2002.

At the March 20 Council meeting several area growers objected to the plan 
that would provide a sludge dump to Ventura County cities.

Lawler said that VRSD would charge up to $50 a ton for processing; Oxnard 
alone disposes of about 22,000 tons annually, which would bring about $1.1 
million to the VRSD alone. Tonnage countywide - about 84,000 tons total - 
could bring more than $4 million annually to VRSD coffers.

Compared to other methods what the VRSD is proposing would include utilizing 
landfill gases for energy, a cost saver said Lawler.

Anita Nelson wanted assurances at the March 20 meeting that the VRSD would 
not act as its own lead agency during the approval process.

“...what the rest of the county is asking the Santa Clara River Valley to 
take their trash and their sewage as well,” although the process can be done 
at sewage plants said rancher Gordon Kimball.

“We have the jail that nobody else wanted, the landfill no one in the county 
wanted” and now the river valley is faced with taking the county’s human 
waste as well, Kimball added.