Point Reyes Light- December 31, 1998
Coastal trash makes trouble on Highway 101
Last September's closure of West Marin Sanitary Landfill (combined with a new recycling program at Novato's Redwood Landfill) has noticeably increased the amount of traffic crossing Highway 101, and county government is upset.
For much of the coast, Redwood Landfill is now the closest dump, but vehicles entering or leaving it southbound must cross four lanes of Highway 101 traffic, most of it traveling 65 mph or faster.
State, county, and City of Novato officials have long recognized the hazard, and when county government issued Redwood Landfill a Solid Waste Permit six years ago, it limited the dump to 415 "vehicles associated with waste" per day, Ed Stewart, chief of the county Environmental Health Department, told The Light this week.
Even before the dump in Point Reyes Station closed, Redwood was exceeding the 415 limit 8.5 days per month on average, Stewart's department has calculated.
In September and October, the first two months after West Marin Sanitary Landfill closed, the number of days when Redwood exceeded the 415 limit jumped by 65 percent to an average of 14 days per month. (September's and October's statistics are the latest available.)
Stewart and Redwood general manager Doug Diemer both say they want to solve the problem amicably, but Stewart on Monday added that if a satisfactory agreement is not forthcoming, the county will put the landfill on notice that it is violating the conditions of its Solid Waste Permit and will order it to stop doing so.
However, the legal issue is complex. An environmental-impact report that led to Redwood's getting a Solid Waste Permit six years ago noted the need to limit traffic, but the exact limit is at issue.
Landfill manager Diemer told The Light there is "a discrepancy between what the studies that led to the permit said and what the permit allows."
As explained by Stewart from Environmental Health, the Solid Waste Permit's limit applies to "vehicles associated with garbage," and Redwood contends that limit should not apply to the vehicles of its employees.
If the county refuses to go along with this interpretation by Redwood, the landfill will be forced to cut vehicle traffic, and "self-haulers and small commercial businesses," along with recyclers, will be the ones to lose out, Diemer said.
One matter on which Diemer and Stewart agree is that it would be far better if there were a dropoff site in West Marin so that residents who periodically haul their own trash don't have to drive over the hill to Redwood in Novato (or Marin Recycling in San Rafael).
Besides the inherent risk of having to cross a major highway with high-speed traffic bearing down on them, motorists from West Marin typically face 90 minute to two-hour roundtrips to use Redwood.
For some people with a couple of pickup truckloads of trash to dump, that's too inconvenient, and a number of unscrupulous residents periodically dump debris along West Marin roadsides.
If there were a place on the coast where West Marin residents could drop off debris (which would later be trucked in bulk to Novato), the number of vehicles entering and leaving Redwood could be greatly reduced, as could the amount of roadside dumping.
Such a transfer site could also be used by Shoreline Disposal, which picks up garbage in West Marin, thus reducing the number of garbage trucks going in and out of Redwood.
Diemer Monday enthusiastically endorsed creation of a transfer station in West Marin, and Stewart said his office "would support that...It's a great idea."
Supervisor Steve Kinsey has repeatedly said that if a transfer station is financially practical, it could solve several of the problems resulting from West Marin Sanitary Landfill's closing. Last month he reported a financial study is underway.
Meanwhile, Redwood has been cutting back on the amount of waste (such as sewage sludge) coming from outside Marin County. Diemer predicted that his landfill in 1999 will take in less than 25 percent as much out-of-county sludge as it did two and three years ago.