ARVIN, Calif. — Every day,
the trucks rumble into the Central Valley by the dozens, chugging over
the Grapevine loaded with lawn clippings from Beverly Hills, sewage
sludge from Los Angeles and rotting yogurt and vegetables from around
Southern California.
Los Angeles officials and others say the daily caravan is an
essential step toward recycling thousands of tons of urban waste and
turning it into compost and fertilizer in California's vast agrarian
middle. But increasingly, residents of the Central Valley and other
rural areas object to the stream of semis and their unpleasant cargo.
"You guys in Los Angeles are dumping all your waste on us," said
Sarah Sharpe, the environmental health program director at Fresno Metro
Ministry, a nonprofit group that advocates for environmental justice.
"We just don't think it's fair."
Simmering for more than a
decade, the issue has flared up in the last year after two young workers
died from exposure to toxic fumes at one of the state's largest
composting operations in Kern County. Community Recycling & Resource
Recovery's facility outside Arvin was full of yard waste from Los
Angeles, and had also been under fire for allegedly putting plastic on
fields in violation of local land use rules.
Kern County's supervisors ordered the operation shut, setting off a legal battle between the county and the operator.
Thirty-nine of California's 58 counties shipped more than 5% of their
trash and recycling across county lines last year. Much of it goes to
the Central Valley, which has the vast acreage to handle it. A Times
analysis of state recycling data shows that more than 60% of all
non-agricultural compost in the state winds up in the region, which is
home to just 14% of the population.
Processing waste regionally is the only way cities can meet state
goals that call for diverting half their waste away from landfills,
state and metropolitan officials say. There is not enough space in urban
centers like San Francisco and Los Angeles, nor is there a large market
there for compost.
But some officials said that when the waste gets to rural areas,
recycling facilities don't always sufficiently protect the environment
and neighbors' quality of life.
"A lot of these disposal facilities don't want to use the most modern
technology because it costs more," said Kern County's planning
director, Lorelei Oviatt. "Our residents want to know why they have to
endure the impacts merely to save money for some people in Los Angeles."
The debate is only expected to escalate: A law approved last year
calls for the state to aim to recycle or otherwise reduce 75% of its
waste by 2020. Los Angeles has vowed to go even further, expanding
recycling so much that the city will be "zero waste" by 2025.
::
One of the most bitter battles in California is over sludge, the
batter-like material left over after treatment plants finish cleaning
and draining what is flushed down the toilet or washed down the sink.
Sludge used to get dumped in the ocean — but that was banned in the 1980s because of concerns about pollution.
In 2000, the city of Los Angeles bought 4,600 acres in Kern County,
just off Interstate 5 near Taft, and has been sending up more than 20
truckloads a day of "wet cake" from the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant
near
LAX.
Private companies in Kern County are also in the business, including
the South Kern Industrial Center, operated by Synagro and Liberty
Composting, both permitted to take hundreds of thousands of tons a year,
according to officials at the regional waterboard.
Los Angeles officials and those at major wastewater treatment plants
in the state say that spreading such "biosolids" on land or composting
it as fertilizer is good for the city and good for the farm. They note
that sludge is heated to 131 degrees for several days until harmful
bacteria and pathogens are destroyed or removed.
Los Angeles' land in Kern County features a red barn and a sign:
"Green Acres Farm." The city's website proudly describes the corn,
alfalfa and oats that are grown there.
"To me, it's completing a circle, putting back to the earth what came
from it, and doing it very protectively and beneficially," said Greg
Kester, biosolids program manager for the California Assn. of Sanitation
Agencies. "Biosolids do enrich the soil in Kern County."
Kern County officials don't see it that way. They fear groundwater
will be contaminated and that metals and pharmaceuticals will leach into
the soil.
Most experts say recycled products such as sludge and compost are
safe if handled properly. But Kern County officials filed court
declarations from scientists who are skeptical. Portland State
University engineer Gwynn Johnson, for instance, said research shows
that biosolids contain metals, antibiotics and flame retardants, and
that more study is needed to determine the implications for "human
health and the environment."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-central-valley-20121126,0,69011.story
![Huell Howser has been doing basically the same job since the 1970s. "You could tell me that I couldn't go outside of a five-mile radius ... [and] there's enough right within five miles to keep me busy the rest of my life," he said. "Why are we looking so hard? It's right under our noses."](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/dY2DZ56DluZN-ttSf9lTum2cbHVzRKn29fE1dFW6g1eR2-UFAFFyzhF51Gb16lVQHPEGFAePw84S9b42QnmnDtIbWG3y5x9Py1LqFaBioOaE1MjziEtU1ojcwwyknA=s0-d "Huell Howser has been doing basically the same job since the 1970s. \"You could tell me that I couldn't go outside of a five-mile radius ... [and] there's enough right within five miles to keep me busy the rest of my life,\" he said. \"Why are we looking so hard? It's right under our noses.\"")
