No Hope for the Landfill, the County's Smoke and Mirrors

If you couldn't go to this past Tuesday's Board of Supervisor's meeting, you didn't really miss much. Only that the County, in its infinite wisdom aided mostly by Supervisor Shirlee Zane whose latest campaign for reelection was bolstered by an over eleven thousand dollar donation from Republic Services, has decided, 5-0, to endorse signing over management of the Central Sonoma County Landfill on Mecham Road for THE NEXT 20 YEARS to Republic Services, the nation's second largest landfill management mega-corporations. And, it should be remembered, one with probably THE WORST environmental record in the nation! The Mecham Road-Central Sonoma County Landfill is located a couple of miles or so west of Cotati.

Some made the point, how can the County pass this contract out to a corporation out of state when the local economy continues to suffer? Obviously, the Board doesn't care about creating local jobs. A local group of small hauling companies, a consortium, could be formed or molded together to manage the landfill efficiently. Yet this solution will not even be tried. Other speakers who live near the site wanted more checking for waste which blows off of vehicles every day and destroys their view of what is one of the most pristine and naturally beautiful landscapes in all of our state.

What will happen to this half a billion dollars which the County will soon get? Why isn't any of this large wad of cash going to help the local residents who must endure life next to ths landfill every week, month and year to come?

Another speaker, respected environmentalist William (Bill) Kortum posited the idea of an independent board perhaps appointed by the supervisors themselves, who would work in conjunction and under the direction of the board, to keep records on the amounts of air and water pollution and the possible production of a fuel from the landfill. But, NO, this too was slam-dunked into the memory hole by the board in a hurry to close the meeting.

The Press Democrat article which covered it is at,
https://www./pressdemocrat.com/artic...-landfill-deal

At the risk of sounding sarcastic, one has to wonder why there is any so-called "open meeting" time at all given the fact that the board has already made up its mind and the votes have been bought and paid for. The allotted time for each speaker was cut by one third from three minutes to two. Ever try to compress the beliefs of a lifetime into two minutes?

What is clearly about to happen is a tragedy in the making. The county's ownership/management of the property on Mecham Road has been a blessing to every single man, woman and child in Sonoma County for years. Because the Board of Supervisors, in its present form, has had to deal with having to truck nearly half of all the public's waste to Solano County to another public dump site, it has been forced to pay out a great deal on money. Also, since the state water board's decision that because of the accidental piercing of the dump's liner by an employee waste water seeped out polluting the groundwater.

So...for five hundred forty seven M the County hires Republic Servises, an Arizona corporation with a rotten record of polluting sites in Ohio, South Carolina, and California gets the right to carry on its mischief here in beautiful (to this point at least) Sonoma County!

The "MO," or method of operation, for Republic Sevices goes like it did in Canton, Ohio. There it let a fire burn for over five years while its management denied anything was wrong. When it was finally stopped by a lawsuit Republic paid its way out of the mess. This is exactly what will happen here. Only the lawyers and the present members of the Board of Supervisors (Zane, Carrillo, Gorin, Rabbitt, and McIntyre) are going to be pleased while the rest of us and the world we leave to our posterity suffers.

Sup. Carrillo arrogantly remarked after the public's comments were over: "This all sounds like all that we've heard before!" It's no democracy anymore.