Sludge Watch ==> Desert Protests Los Angeles Sludge Dump for Hinkley

[Maureen Reilly]

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Compost company protesters picket Postmus
By HOWARD DECKER Staff Writer

BARSTOW -- First district county Supervisor Bill Postmus was greeted by 
picketers as he spoke about a $150,000 training grant at the fire district's 
main fire station.

The picketers were not protesting the fire district or the grant but what 
they said was Postmus' refusal to meet with them in regard to the Nursery 
Products waste-composting plant proposed for the Hinkley area.

Sandra Diaz, one of just fewer than a dozen protesters, said the group was 
trying to get Postmus "to change his idea that Los Angeles sludge can be 
dumped to the west of us out near Hinkley."

She said the recently completed Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), 
which was prepared for the county, said the project was "fine" and the DEIR 
states nothing can be done to mitigate the negative impact to air quality. 
The sign-carrying protesters, who marched back and forth across the street 
from the fire district facility, she said, were private citizens who don't 
want the composting facility to come to the area.

Protester Bob Hilburn, from Barstow, said he feels that fine dust from the 
composting plant will carry pathogens that will make people in Hinkley and 
Barstow ill.

"In Adelanto they didn't get rid of the Nursery Products' waste composting 
plant until people were getting ill in the city hall there itself."


Howard Decker / Staff Photographer
Residents of Barstow and Hinkley picketed First District county Supervisor 
Bill Postmus Wednesday. The protestors carried signs while marching back and 
forth across the street from the Fire District facility on Barstow Road. The 
group is protesting what they see as Postmus' support of the Nursery 
Products proposed wastewater waste composting plant near Hinkley.


Postmus spoke at a meeting of the Rotary Club of Barstow earlier and said 
that the issue has not come to the Board of Supervisors as of yet so he and 
the other supervisors have not considered the matter.

The supervisor's spokesman, David Zook, said late Wednesday that the matter 
has not been before the county Planning Commission.

"It could come before the Planning Commission, and they could turn it down," 
he said. Zook said he did not know if Postmus had spoken to residents for or 
against the project.

At the Rotary meeting, Postmus also talked about funding for firefighters. 
He said the county fire department's Desert Division has around 27 stations 
but in the past, their combined budget was smaller than that of the 
Arrowhead Fire Protection District, which had only four stations. Six years 
ago, he said, the desert stations had $200,000 per year less to work with 
than the Arrowhead district.

At that time, county fire stations were primarily funded by property owner 
assessments with no money in their budgets from the county general fund.

The county fire stations, he said, need to respond to emergencies on 
Interstate 15 and that traffic on that highway is expected to double in 15 
years, which will put a strain on the firefighters.

Postmus said in the past there were not enough firefighters available and 
paid call firefighters would have to be called at home or at work to respond 
to emergencies.

The supervisors' answer to the fire budget problem, he said, was to take 
money from general funds. In the last year and a half, he said, the fire 
protection budget has doubled.

http://www.desertdispatch.com/2006/116187207910903.html