Sludge deal takes Taft by surprise

Sludge deal takes Taft by surprise
Mayor says city leaders were unaware of county plan to allow sewage facility nearby
By GRETCHEN WENNER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: gwenner@bakersfield.com

Posted: Friday February 25th, 2005, 11:05 PM
Last Updated: Friday February 25th, 2005, 11:46 PM

Taft's mayor spit out his coffee Friday morning when he picked up the paper. Cliff Thompson had never heard of the huge sludge composting facility set to go up just outside his city. Nor had anyone else at City Hall, as far as he could tell.
By 10:30 a.m., Thompson was in downtown Bakersfield speaking at a press conference thrown by state Sen. Dean Florez, the Shafter Democrat.

"We don't need to grow with a dump right in our back yard," Thompson said. "We oppose this vehemently."

The chance to voice such opposition, however, has nearly run out.

That's because the Synagro Technologies Inc. sewage processing plant already has county permits. The Board of Supervisors granted those more than two years ago, and once those permits are on the books projects are nearly impossible to derail.

The plant is on track to absorb 500 tons a day of human sewage trucked in from Southern California starting early next year.

Nevertheless, Thompson and Florez will try slipping a wrench in the machinery Tuesday, when supervisors take on another Synagro (pronounced SINN-uh-groh) issue. It may be their last chance.

The encounter will likely end up a head-on clash of galloping state senate bills, finance schemes and corporate gloss.

Florez, who has two pending senate bills that could affect the project, will ask board members to postpone voting on a state-backed $35 million bond to finance construction of the plant.

The county, he said, failed to give proper public notice of a Feb. 10 debt-committee meeting where the tax-exempt, low-interest loan plan was first approved.

What's more, he said, supervisors will be squandering the county's good name by vouching for Synagro if they approve the bond, even though Kern won't actually be loaning the money.

Now the lawmaker, who already introduced Senate Bill 926 to halt the transport of sludge across county lines, is tweaking another piece of proposed legislation to tighten up the tax-exempt bond.

"This group has been very clever," Florez said of Synagro, a publicly traded company headquartered in Houston. "They're trying to do something they couldn't do through the state."

Synagro previously applied for a $58 million tax-exempt bond through the California Pollution Control Financing Authority in May 2003, meeting records show.

Those funds came under fire last fall when the Los Angeles Times reported the state-backed loans had paid to expand and relocate megadairies, including some in Kern.

Florez said Synagro is now applying for similar funding through the California Statewide Communities Development Authority.

far, the authority has approved bonds for affordable housing and similar economic development projects, he said.

Florez said he'll be widening his bond legislation, Senate Bill 931, to block the development authority from lending money to Synagro and similar companies.

But if county supervisors approve the bond plan Tuesday, that legal clamp will come too late to clip the biosolids plant, because the state usually rubber-stamps bonds with local government support.

Supervisor Ray Watson, whose district includes the southwestern part of the county, said people automatically get emotional whenever the word "biosolids" comes up.

"What happens on Tuesday really has very little, if any, impact on biosolids operations" in Kern, Watson said.

The plant will compost sewage that will be bagged for fertilizer and spread on golf courses and some ag land, he said. It will not be spread over the valuable groundwater bank that has the Kern County Water Agency pushing for a change in sludge-spreading practices here, he said.

Watson didn't recall a $1,250 donation from Synagro to his campaign in 2003, but said he can't be bought.

"Whether it was $500 or $1 million, it would not influence my doing what I think is the right thing," he said.

"If we were ever presented with any evidence of harm that we could defend in court," Watson said, "I can assure you we would immediately proceed to ban that operation."

Synagro's project developer, Liz Ostoich, said the composting plant will reduce Kern's biosolids challenges. Processing of ag waste will cut down on ag burning, she said, which will help with air quality.

And overall imports won't increase from what they are currently, she said. Last year, more than 450,000 wet tons of sewage were trucked into Kern from Southern California.

While the plant is permitted to take in livestock and food waste, those will be rejected, Ostoich said. Only sewage and agriculture waste will be allowed.

About a quarter of the Synagro plant's output will be bagged and sold in home-improvement stores for fertilizer, she said.

The rest will be used for golf courses and horticulture, she said. Some could be shipped as far as Las Vegas, although some may be applied as fertilizer in Kern.

Sludge generators, including sanitation districts in Los Angeles and Orange counties, will pay Synagro $54 a ton to pick up, compost, bag and market the sewage.

Much of the facility will be covered and treated with air filters to minimize pollution and odors, she said. The company is committed to producing only the most highly treated, or Class A, product, she said, and is building "a very high-end facility."

Ostoich said Synagro has also agreed to treat Taft's wastewater for free.

For Thompson, the future facility conflicts with the city's expansion plans. The plant will be built 12 miles east of Taft, but the city's sphere of influence pushes those edges much closer.

City leaders have been planning to market their town as a retirement community. But with Kern becoming a destination for sludge, those plans could wither.

"We weren't aware of this issue until this morning," Thompson said, adding: "We'll be there in force Tuesday."

http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/5316715p-5345868c.html

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