Sludge Watch ==> Nursery Products - the BadBoy of Adelanto wants huge sludge site in Hinkley

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Nursery Products...the name still strikes fear in residents of
Adelanto California...

Odors...swarms of flies of biblical proportions...nauseated residents,
construction workers woofing their cookies and abandonning construction 
sites,
truck drivers who refuse to approach the facility, and electrical workers
fearing for their lives as the flies and dust from the site risked
flashovers on the high tension wires near the site.  (Nursery
Products...sounds kinda sweet doesn't it?  Conjures up a combination lawn &
garden centre and baby nursery....but this one doesn't smell like baby
powder)

Nursery Products (principal Jeff Meberg) is making another bid to open a
massive open air sludge / greenwaste 'compost' operation.  The first 'test'
site was Adelanto Calif...where the sludge compost site was closed by a
judge on public health grounds.  Despite 125 complaints the San Bernardino
County Environmental Health Depart -  Dan Avera - couldn't see his way clear
to take ANY abatement efforts.  Nor was any relief provided by the EPA.

No government agency provided any regulatory relief or answer to the
complaints from residents and from LA Dept of Water and Power, who were hard
pressed to run their power station due to the offsite impacts, odor, dust,
flies from the site.  The LA DWP lawsuit is still underway.

With the Adelanto site court ordered shut, Meberg went looking to reopen but
this time proposed a facility 10 times bigger in Newberry Springs.
Now....after huge opposition there...he is trying again at another location
near Kramer Junction - a little community 8 miles east of Hinkley Calif.

You may remember that Hinckley is the community were Erin Brockovitch
discovered contaminated drinking water.  Yup.. Look out Hinckley...get your
flyswatter out now.  Better yet get the phone and get Erin on the line.

attached are the Env Assessment Notice of Preparation, a site map, and
proposal checklist.
The devil is in the details.


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

Waste-composting company moves to open new facility
Chuck Mueller, Staff Writer

HINKLEY - A waste-composting company wants to open a facility to process 
tons of
biosolids and green wastes after a court ordered the firm to close a similar
operation in Adelanto and angry residents of Newberry Springs blocked its
attempt to relocate there.

San Clemente-based Nursery Products LLC has launched plans to build the 
facility
at a 160-acre site it owns about eight miles west of Hinkley.

Plans call for processing up to 400,000 tons of waste annually.
Agricultural-grade compost would be produced.

Biosolids are a by-product of treated sewage, according to Carrie Hyke,
supervising planner with San Bernardino County's land-use services.

A public meeting will be conducted at 7 p.m. Thursday at Hinkley Elementary
school, 37600 Hinkley Road, to gather comments on the proposal to help 
land-use
officials prepare an environmental-impact report on the project.

Hyke said a draft environmental report is expected to be completed in August 
and
would be available for public review for 45 days. The proposal then would go 
to
the county Planning Commission, probably in November, and then to the county
Board of Supervisors.

The composting facility is planned on part of the 160 acres, about a mile 
south
of Highway 58 and a mile east of Helendale Road.

Composting procedures call for Nursery Products to use a combination of 
windrow
and composting-pile methods, according to information in a company report. 
The
composting process, which would occur in a half-mile-square area at the 
site,
takes from 60 to 180 days.

Up to 2,000 tons of waste would be received daily. Clean soils or other 
inert
materials, such as sand or sawdust, would be used as a bulking agent.

The company report says moisture levels will limit dust. Odor would be 
minimized
through a special management plan.

When residents of Adelanto complained of excessive flies and noxious odors
connected to a 40-acre composting site a year ago, a Victorville Superior 
Court

Advertisement

judge ordered Nursery Products to shut down the facility.

Attorneys for Adelanto said the facility constituted a public nuisance, but
legal counsel for Nursery Products disagreed, saying the company has never 
been
cited as unsafe by county or state agencies.

Newberry Springs residents then protested the firm's plans to open a 79-acre
waste-composting facility, saying it would contaminate the community's water
table. But a company spokesman said no seepage would enter the underlying 
basin.

Jeff Meberg, owner and operator of Nursery Products, said then the plant 
would
be designed to protect the water table. "We don't expect any water 
contamination
due to the table's depth and the facility's design," he said. "There will be 
no
toxic wastes."

He said plans for the Newberry Springs development called for processing 
waste
to a high-quality potting soil and compost to be used on field crops and
gardens.

But because of the opposition, Nursery Products decided to discontinue its
efforts to open the Newberry Springs operation.

Meberg could not be reached for comment on the Hinkley-area project.

But his company's report details facility operations ranging from water
consumption to dust and odor control.

According to the report, biosolids would be processed within two hours upon
arrival at the site, and chipped and ground green waste would be processed
daily.

Finished products would generally be removed within 360 days, the report 
said.

www.sbsun.com/ci_3820590


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

Here is one victim's statement:

From: Doug Olson (Adelanto, California)

Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 8:13 PM       Subject: Sewage Sludge 
Serious Problem




I have read a lot about you and a lot about sewage sludge only after the 
fact that a co-composting plant moved in about 1 mile south of where I 
lived. Adelanto, Ca 92301.  The owner said he is a Green Waste Facility and 
it is called Nursery Products. How misleading.   The facility started Aug, 
2002.
For the past year I had been having dizzy spells, problems breathing and 
bleeding sores on my arms and some on my face. I had been to my doctors 
several times and to the E.R. They never could find anything wrong, they 
would say it's probably stress go home and relax. I also ended up with a 
severe sinus infection that wouldn't go away with antibiotics and flushing 
my nose with sterile saline. I was scheduled for sinus surgery (which I 
never had done) and then they thought it could be anxiety with my breathing 
problems they recommended some medication for that, I never got it. They did 
give me meclazine for my dizziness.



I never put all my symptoms together with the strong fertilizer/ammonia 
smell I was smelling usually at night, until an article in the newspaper and 
a council meeting on Nov 5, 03. Then things got worse and the smell got 
stronger and on Nov 23, 03 I was pumping gas at our local circle K, the 
smell was so strong it made you gag by the time I got home my face felt like 
it was on fire (like a severe sun burn). I went to urgent care the next day, 
the Doctor told me to get out of Adelanto for a few weeks until my symptoms 
cleared up. I wish I had listened.


(...)



There were over 200 people at the council meeting Nov 5, 04. Even young kids 
spoke to the council telling them they are so sick they can't go to school. 
So this is when I started doing my research and calling and e-mailing every 
elected official I could find, they all told me it's not their problem it is 
a city problem. I can't believe the mentality of these  people when you talk 
to them, they are all in Denial or getting paid big bucks.



I know they know how harmful this is, there was a 65 page report from the 
South Coast Air Quality Management District telling how dangerous a facility 
like this is. When I told Ron Clark at the Mojave Desert Air Quality 
Management District (which is our district) about the report it is no longer 
on the web-site. I don't know why it was on there in the first place, but I 
am glad I saved it to disk.

We don't know where to turn for help, I joined the Sierra Club hoping for 
support. If you could lead us in the right direction it would be greatly 
appreciated.

There is a lot more to this and a lot that the people of adelanto have been 
through concerning this. All we get is the run around.



I will e-mail some of the letters and newspaper articles.



Thank You,
for your time



Doug Olson