Opponents Trash Composting Plan
by Matt Carter
Fremont Argus, February 21, 2005

The chief executive officer and several doctors from Washington Hospital in Fremont are part of a group working against a planned regional composting facility that would be built not far from the CEO's Sunol home. Opponents, who also include high-ranking members of the Sierra Club, are attacking the proposed facility on environmental, economic and legal grounds.

Backers of the project knew they would have to address residents' fears that the facility would generate noise, odors and traffic. But they may have underestimated the breadth and depth of arguments against it.

The Alameda County Waste Management Authority proposes building the facility on a 40-acre site on Andrade Road, off Interstate 680. The authority — made up of 17 cities and sanitary districts and Alameda County — chose the site in part because of easy access to I-680 and water from a nearby quarry.

Opponents say they're all for composting. But they fear the operation — which would be able to handle 600 tons of yard waste and food scraps a day — will have all the negative impacts of a garbage dump.

It would make more sense for composting operations to be carried out at existing garbage facilities, they say, than to build a new facility from scratch.

Some of the issues first raised by opponents might have been dismissed as minor ones that could be addressed.

It's expected the operation will generate 500 car and truck trips a day, and that 60 percent of those trips will be made by tractor-trailer trucks.

But the authority says it could route truck traffic through a neighboring quarry, reducing the impact on neighbors.

Neighbors also claimed the "dump" would generate odors and attract "pestilence" including rats and bugs to the rural area. Those problems have been

managed at other facilities in close proximity to homes, backers said. When opponents of the composting showed up without warning at the last meeting of the authority's board of directors, they unleashed a new barrage of criticism to convince the board to withdraw support for the project. Several doctors affiliated with Washington Hospital showed up to testify against the project on health grounds. Hospital CEO Nancy Farber lives near the proposed composting site and is a member of "Stop the Dump in Sunol."

Dr. William Nicholson, a member of the hospital's board of directors who also lives near the proposed site, cited a German study suggesting people living near composting facilities are exposed to airborne bacteria and molds, placing them at greater risk for respiratory disease.

Others said the composting business would devalue homes in the area, and it could cause parents to withdraw their children from Sunol Glen School. John Franco, who owns a nearby driving range, said it could put him out of business.

Slow-growth issue

Sierra Club activist Steve Bloom claimed the composting facility is prohibited under Measure D, a countywide slow-growth measure passed by voters four years ago.

Backers of the composting operation say those and other issues will be addressed before the project is approved. The authority, which proposes investing up to $5.5 million in the project, must certify an Environmental Impact Report that will analyze potential problems and identify ways to reduce them.

Although the Tri-Valley chapter of the Sierra Club came out against the project, the club's San Francisco Bay Chapter has decided to remain neutral until the draft report is completed later this year. But Sierra Club members Bloom and Richard Schneider want county officials to rule that the project would violate land use.

Comments on a draft of the report were due Jan. 31, and Stop the Dump in Sunol has hired experts to raise hundreds of new questions that must be addressed in the final report.

"That's good, if we can answer them all to their level of satisfaction," said Bill Schreeder, president of Material Recovery Industries Inc., the company that would run the facility under contract with the authority.

MRI Inc. is a partnership comprised of waste haulers including Alameda County Industries, which collects garbage in San Leandro and Pleasanton Garbage Service, which has contracts to haul trash in Dublin and Pleasanton.

The draft environmental report does not address the potential for "bioaerosols" — organic dusts that can carry microorganisms such as bacteria and molds — to drift off site.

Nicholson provided the board with a study published in the Occupational Environmental Medicine. The study, which surveyed neighbors living downwind of a composting facility in the German city of Kassel, found concentrations of airborne microorganisms within 150 to 320 meters of the facility were 100 to 1,000 times higher than "background" levels. Previous studies had already found that workers handling garbage and compost can experience shortness of breath and coughing. By law, the Sunol facility would be managed with the goal of preventing workers from being exposed to airborne pathogens at levels that exceed state standards. But the draft Environmental Impact Report doesn't attempt to analyze whether residents of nearby homes might be at risk.

Compost competition

Opponents say some of their worries could be addressed if composting was done in enclosed vessels, instead of outdoors. Their ultimate goal is to convince the authority to make further attempts to locate the facility at an existing landfill.

The authority conducted unsuccessful negotiations with Waste Management of Alameda County Inc. to build a facility at the Altamont landfill. Waste Management Inc. now says it will build its own, private, facility in the Altamont.

Republic Services Inc. also plans to offer composting services at the Vasco Road landfill north of Livermore. It will be up to the board to decide whether to certify the Environmental Impact Report and proceed with the project.

"If we were to locate (the composting facility) in Sunol, that would benefit the people of Pleasanton. But the question is, at what price to the people of Sunol?" said Pleasanton Mayor Jennifer Hosterman, who represents the city on the authority's board.

"It appears as though a composting facility will have more than a small impact on Sunol. We need to continue to discuss whether that is the best site."