The commission held a hearing at its Dec. 11 meeting on the expansion plans at 230 Soday Bay Road. Commissioners ended the hearing by granting a mitigated negative declaration based on an initial study for a major use permit.
Lake County Waste Solutions, which provides trash and recycling pickup for most the county's unincorporated areas and the city of Clearlake, wants to expand its current facilities to a medium volume transfer and processing facility.
The plans call for a new 12,000 square foot building that would include a new recycling buyback center, said county planner Kevin Ingram. The facility currently processes between 35 and 60 tons a day, he said.
The new metal building, measuring 150 feet by 80 feet, would exceed the maximum building height by 5 feet, Ingram added.
Part of the plan would be completion of a lefthand turn lane into the operation, plus importation of a large amount of fill to raise the building site above the flood plain. As part of the plan, an old vineyard on the west side of the current center would be used. The company will have to plant trees to create a visual break; Ingram said other landscaping conditions will be required.
This past March, the Board of Supervisors voted to support Lake County Waste Solutions' plans for the transfer facility. The company has offered to take over the waste stream that the county's transfer station on Bevins Street in Lakeport has been collecting. That would allow the county to close the facility, which is facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs if it is to keep operating. Ingram referred to that agreement in his discussion before the commission.
District 4 Commissioner Cliff Swetnam said in his eight years on the commission he has developed two main pet peeves – people who build without permits and then ask for permits afterward, and businesses that don't comply with all the terms and conditions of use permits.
Swetnam said that in December 2005 the commission approved a facility use permit that included a condition for road improvements on Soda Bay Road, primarily the lefthand turn lane, to Timberline Disposal, the name of the company prior to its current ownership. A use permit previous to that one, approved in 1998, also required those road improvements.
“We sit here today some 10 years later, and still no road improvements have been made by this business,” said Swetnam. “Speaking for myself, that is not good enough for me.”
Swetnam said he wasn't inclined to grant another permit to the company unless those previously required provisions were met. He asked for the company to make the road improvements and then to come back to the Planning Commission on the transfer facility.
If, within one year, the company hadn't made the turn lane improvements, Swetnam said he wanted Community Development Department staff to bring the company's use permit forward for revocation on the grounds of the public's safety being at risk.
Last year, Bruce McCracken and two partners purchased Timberline Disposal, which has since become Lake County Waste Solutions.
McCracken, who worked for the previous ownership, told the commission that he'd had no control over how the company previously failed to meet its requirements. “Believe me, I've taken so many arrows on many different directions on that lefthand turn lane,” he said.
Since buying the company, they've made upgrades, including new staff and new trucks, said McCracken.
Part of the problem with getting the lefthand turn lane built, he said, was due to a lengthy delay by Pacific Gas and Electric, which only recently moved power poles that will allow the road work to be done.
“I want that done as soon as possible,” said McCracken, who added that he had a contract with Granite Construction that he was about to sign for the construction work.
McCracken joked that the hair loss that left him with a mostly bald head was due to the turn lane.
Swetnam replied that the permit conditions move with the property, and so it's Lake County Waste Solutions' responsibility to make sure they're fulfilled. McCracken said he understood.
Community Development Director Rick Coel said it had come to his attention that PG&E was responsible for the delays. He said talks with PG&E about moving the poles started in April 2007, but they lost some of the original applications.
Coel added that Timberline Disposal never actually applied to have the poles moved, as McCracken and his partners have.
“I'm not going to make any excuses for the previous ownership,” said McCracken.
Swetnam asked about the timeline for getting the work done. McCracken said the contract is ready to go. “I want this done,” he said.
Carolyn Chavez, deputy director of the county's Public Services Department, agreed with Coel that the holdup in the road improvements over the last year has been PG&E's fault. Public Services and Supervisor Anthony Farrington got involved to try to move things forward.
“They promised many, many times it was gong to be happening,” she said of PG&E.
She added, “This is a project we extensively support.”
Chavez said the Bevins Street transfer station has seen a 60-percent drop in both customers and the amount of tonnage it's taking in.
“It's no longer an economically viable operation,” Chavez said. “Our transfer station is being held together with bailing wire and chewing gum.”
The station's main compactor has been down since January, Chavez said. “We're not making the money but we want to continue providing the service.”
The county must adhere to a state requirement to divert 50 percent of its trash from the landfill to recycling, which Chavez said extends the landfill life. Lake County Waste Solutions' proposal will allow the county to meet its diversion, which the county hasn't yet been able to do.
Chavez said the company's transfer station will continue a public service at the same rates as the county's facility. She added that Lake County Waste Solutions also isn't asking the county to provide funding for the project.
The county's landfill can take about 200 tons of garbage per day, said Chavez. From 2000 to 2002, the Bevins Street facility represented between 35 and 40 percentage of that overall tonnage. However, it has since dropped to 10 percent, said Chavez, an amount that Lake County Waste Solutions can easily pick up.
Sarah Ryan, environmental director for Big Valley Rancheria, had concerns about the project and a cultural resources survey conducted in 2004. She said there are many recorded and unrecorded historical and archaeological sites along Soda Bay Road that could be impacted by the lefthand turn lane and the rest of the expansion project.
Ryan asked for a more thorough study of the project area, as well as having a tribal monitor on site during excavation. She said they also wanted to make sure the project's engineering accounts for an expected increase in runoff during the peak rainy season in order to keep that water off of Soda Bay Road.
She also asked, on behalf of the tribe, for a subsurface evaluation of the area, particularly near Manning Creek, where they believe artifacts may be found.
McCracken said he had no problems with having a tribal monitor on site.
Swetnam emphasized that he wanted to see the turn lane completed before any construction is done. McCracken agreed.
Commission Chair Gil Schoux said he had no objections to the project with the added conditions regarding the turn lane and tribal monitoring. “I think we need it really bad.”
Commissioner Monica Rosenthal said she agreed with Swetnam about the need for the turn lane and adding it as a condition of the project. She noted that during a site visit she had been very concerned about traffic going in and out of the facility.
With the added conditions, Swetnam offered his support. “This is a necessary business. It provides a great service to the community.”
That makes it especially important to take care of business and ensure the use permit's conditions are followed, he said.
Swetnam added that he looks forward to seeing the upgraded facility with the turn lane, and so he moved to approve both the use permit and the mitigated negative. The commission approved both motions unanimously.
In March, when the board discussed its support of the facility, Coel had estimated it would take 18 months to move through the process, and take six months to get to the Planning Commission. The Dec. 11 approval means the process is about three months behind that estimated schedule.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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