Point Reyes Light - November 18, 2004

County's poll about trash turns into postal garbage

By Jacob Resneck

County government last week mailed West Marin residents a survey asking whether they are willing to pay more for garbage pickup in order to subsidize a local facility for dropping off bulky trash.

Civic Center has gotten back completed surveys from 450 residents (out of 7,000 mailed). Whether all surveys mailed back will reach Civic Center is unlikely. Some may end up "just as dead letters," staff at the North Bay sorting office in Petaluma told The Light Wednesday.

Not only did the county print a non-existent zip code on the return address, it failed to include the bar coding required of business-reply mail. As a result, automated sorting machines are sending many completed surveys into the ether (zip code 93913) and not San Rafael (94913).

Further confusing the issue is that the survey was inadvertently sent out to residents in Bolinas and Stinson Beach zipcodes despite the fact that both towns independently negotiate their service with Waste Management and would not be effected by a renegotiated rate increase as proposed in the survey.

The deadline for returning surveys has now been extended to Nov. 29.

History of trash fiasco

Since the closure of the West Marin Sanitary Landfill in Point Reyes Station seven years ago, many West Marin residents have had to drive to the Redwood Landfill north of Novato to dispose of large items.

Unfortunately, numerous scofflaws have found it easier to dump their bulky trash in the creeks of West Marin and on its roadsides. So many refrigerators, televisions, couches, and other large trash items were covertly dumped at recycling centers that five of West Marin’s six recycling centers were forced to close.

The sixth (at Toby’s Feed Barn) closed this fall when garbage-hauler Waste Management started providing Dumpsters too high for many recyclers. Toby’s has now opened a new recycling center, but only for cans and bottles that carry the California-redemption-value symbol. Newspapers and cardboard are not accepted.

Rampant illegal dumping has become a hot political issue in West Marin, and incumbent Steve Kinsey and challengers Dennis Rodoni and Louis Nuyens offered sharply differing proposed solutions during last winter’s supervisorial campaign.

Transfer station proposed six years ago

West Marin Sanitary Landfill owner Leroy Martinelli on Wednesday expressed his annoyance at the county’s survey, pointing out that in 1998, he approached the county about the possibility of operating a transfer station on the site of his former landfill. However, he said, he never received a response.

"When we closed the landfill, we [proposed] a half-a-million-dollar transfer station that Richmond Sanitary wanted to put in," Martinelli said. "We were going to have a roof over it, a recycling center, and it was all presented to the county."

Supervisor Kinsey denies ever receiving an application from Martinelli or any operator interested in installing a transfer station. "I’ve told Mr. Martinelli all along, anyone is welcome to make an application. If Waste Management or Martinelli or anybody wants to come forward with a proposal, they are welcome," Kinsey told The Light last week.

County ignored proposal

Leonard Stefanelli, vice president of Richmond Sanitary, on Wednesday countered Kinsey’s claim by providing The Light with the outline of a proposal which he and Martinelli sent the county on July 8, 1998. Ten days after getting no response, Stefanelli wrote the supervisor asking why. Under their proposal, a transfer station would be built on the site of the then-recently closed West Marin landfill.

"If you have no intent of even considering it, (which may very well be the case)," Stefanelli wrote to Kinsey six years ago, "I would think that professional courtesy would prevail, and you would tell me that, and I will go my way with no ill thoughts and write the experience off."

In response to the county’s current survey, Stefanelli last week reminded the county of his six-year-old transfer station proposal. He said the problem of illegal dumping in West Marin is directly linked to the 1997 closure of the Point Reyes Station landfill.

Stefanelli wrote that the county had ignored warnings that closing the landfill would lead to illegal dumping. He also wrote that making garbage collection mandatory, as Kinsey has proposed, will not solve the problem.

Waste Management’s fees v. Richmond Sanitary’s

The survey mailed to 7,000 West Marin residents asks whether paying an additional $5 to $8 a month in garbage-pickup service by Waste Management, the Houston-based garbage conglomerate, would be acceptable to residents in order to fund a West Marin transfer station. The county survey also asks whether residents want to make garbage-pickup service mandatory, as it is in many parts of Marin.

Stefanelli, in contrast, said Richmond Sanitary Services’ proposal would add at most $1 to monthly pickup fees.

In West Marin, 2,610 residences are served by Waste Management. Making their service mandatory would add more than 1,000 new customers here.

Neither Jeff Rawls, chief of the waste division of the county’s Public Works Department nor county waste specialist Michael Frost was able to estimate how much a transfer station would cost or how big a rate hike could be justified.

Waste specialist Michael Frost told The Light Tuesday that Supervisor Steve Kinsey "is very interested in moving quick" on coming up with a plan. "As early as next year, we should have a report ready and we’ll pass it on to the county supervisors."

Would the West Marin landfill site be appropriate for a transfer station? "I’m not philosophically opposed," Kinsey answered. "I’m not politically opposed, [but] there may be other sites that are more centrally located."

 Point Reyes Light Cover | News | Coastal Traveler