Sludge Watch ==> Calif Comments: Proposed Nursery Products Sludge Compost Site

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

I know many people are following this situation.
A company that was 'composting' sewage sludge was shut down by lawsuits in 
Adelan.to California.
The neighbors to the site and the City that hosted them slapped them with 
lawsuits for failing to meet their obligations and for generating horrific 
odors, swarms of flies, off site leachate, and flying filth.

Now this same company ... Nursery Products LLC...wants to open up 20 times 
bigger near Hinkley California.  Hinkley...yes..the little desert town made 
famous by Erin Brokovich in a film by the same name.  The company proposes 
to have no power lines or electricity (so no forced aeration), no truck 
washing service, no enclosure, no biofilters.  Just open air sludge dumped 
on site with greenwaste.  They say they have a plan to make sludge 'compost' 
without turning the piles as required by the Part 503 compost rules.

The facility is trying to complete their permitting process and get started.
Here is a spate of Letters to Editor by distressed locals.

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


*http://www.desertdispatch.com/sections/letters/


Hinkley compost fight not about money

This statement is to clear up all the misconceptions about the proposed 
sludge dump in Hinkley.

1. Some people are under the impression that everyone in Hinkley is rich and 
living off PG&E money. This is simply not true. The people who did receive 
money are also living with major health issues and no amount of money can 
stop the pain and suffering they go through. The rest of us moved here after 
the PG&E scandal.

2. The lawsuit against the county is not for money. It is to stop the sludge 
dump from opening and causing more health problems that will lead to a 
lawsuit for money, because we won’t sit back and let history repeat 
itself.

3. There is no economic advantage for the town of Hinkley or Barstow from 
this business opening. Only eight jobs are going to be available and Nursery 
Products has these jobs already filled.

4. The air quality of the entire High Desert will be affected, and when your 
children and grandchildren want to know why they can’t play outside, you 
will have to tell them you didn’t care enough to stop the sludge dump in 
Hinkley.

Theresa Williamson
Hinkley



Composting site needs containment*

The Mojave Desert Air Quality District (MDAQMD) board meeting on Oct. 22, 
concerning Nursery Products LLC’s plans for an open air 80- to 160-acre 
sludge composting site at Hawes, west of Hinkley, was anything but 
compromising.

Those opposed to the composters’ plans believe the only logical and safe 
compromise would be complete enclosure with full emission controls. Nursery 
Products representatives contend the cost will be too high for enclosure and 
that taxpayers would eventually be made to fund it.

Nursery Products LLC is a private company, so if they are unable to build 
their operation with complete health and safety a priority, then my opinion 
is they were the wrong choice to begin with. I believe they already proved 
their lack of ability in Adelanto.

It is still my opinion the Hawes site is a poorly chosen location where 30- 
to 60-mph winds are common and sits atop a line of four major water 
sub-basins interconnected with the Mojave River groundwater. Hawes is upwind 
and upstream of the entire lower Mojave River Basin and its people and 
wildlife.

It is my opinion it will even poise a high risk fire danger with high winds 
transporting embers from the site.

*Mark Orr*
Hinkley

*Smoke from fires illustrates problem with compost facility*
I’m no rocket scientist or brain surgeon, but for the last three or four 
days we haven’t seen the sun real clear, apparently because of the fires 
in Big Bear,and Southern California that are at least 60 miles away, and the 
wind hasn’t particularly been blowing in our direction that I have noticed 
a great deal.

What makes the “super-intelligent” politicians think that building a 
dump approximately eight miles from a school, or 15 miles from the city 
limits of Barstow, is not going to do the same thing to air with the amount 
of dust and dirt that’s going to be created by traffic out there?

I am not, per se, a resident of Hinkley. I do have family — elderly and 
very young — who live in Hinkley. I’ve been a resident of Barstow since 
1968 and I haven’t seen anything quite as foolish as this landfill or 
bio-composting come about in all the years that I’ve lived here.

On Oct. 25 I had occasion to go to the True Value Hardware Store (old H & E 
Store) and it was a relatively calm day, and the stench from the Burrtec 
Waste Management, a very short distance away, was overpowering and I don’t 
know how the employees stay there to do their job.

If this is an example of what waste management does, lets get rid of Burrtec 
and go back to Desert Disposal, of which I don’t recall ever having a 
stench at H & E. I hope that the politicians of Barstow get their heads 
someplace so they can smell what’s going on and vigorously oppose the 
compost waste site in Hinkley and clean up the Burrtec trucks parking 
facility in Barstow.

It would also be nice if Burrtec would set up a schedule so you would know 
what time they are going to pick up the trash. Sometimes it’s 6 a.m., 
other times it’s 3 p.m.

*Rick Langley*
Barstow