Palo Alto's heated debate over the future of local composting will continue Monday night, when a special task force is scheduled to present to the City Council a report identifying a portion of the Palo Alto Airport as a potential site for a new, state-of-the-art composting facility.

But at least one stakeholder group has already stepped forward to oppose the task force's bold proposal -- proponents of the small and bustling airport who say the airport has no land to spare for a composting facility. The Federal Aviation Administration and local advocates of the airport have come out against the plan, arguing that the land identified by the task force should remain a part of the airport.

The compost group and the airport community first clashed in July, when the blue-ribbon task force first proposed shifting a segment of Embarcadero Road northward and building a compost facility just south of the reconstructed road. The group suggested sorting the compost in covered "aerated static piles" -- covered compost piles treated with blowers to speed up the break-down process -- after the current facility in Byxbee Park stops accepting compost in 2012.

The task force also recommends ultimately switching to a more advanced "anaerobic processing" facility that would convert local food scraps, sewage sludge and other waste into methane gas.

But the airport community has lashed out against the proposed location for the new operation: a four-acre parcel in the southeast portion of the airport, next to the water-treatment plant. The site was selected as a compromise between local conservationists, who eagerly await the closure of the current facility at Byxbee Park and the subsequent restoration of the park, and compost advocates, who oppose the city's current plan to ship yard trimmings to the Z-Best facility near Gilroy after the local facility shuts down.

The airport location, both sides argued, would allow the city to treat its own compost and to do so on a site that isn't on dedicated parkland.

But members of the airport community have expressed frustration about not being consulted by the compost group and called the group's proposal to use airport land for a composting operation a "nonstarter." In July, several attended a council meeting to argue against the plan.

Over the past week, the group renewed its opposition. Ralph Britton, president of the Palo Alto Airport Association, wrote a letter to the council last week saying the association "disputes any claim that airport land is unused and available, and is unequivocally opposed to the taking (of) any airport land for non-aviation
purposes."

Britton wrote that he first learned of the proposal from an article in the Palo Alto Weekly and said the task force should have notified the airport community before issuing its recommendation. The land proposed by the task force, he wrote, is used for helicopter operations and regular training activities.

"The site recommended by the (task force) would hamper and make dysfunctional existing Airport operations and seriously affect helicopter operations, thereby threatening public health and safety," Britton wrote. "Adopting this site plan is not in the city's best interest and should be rejected."

David Creemer, chair of the Joint Community Relations Committee of the Palo Alto Airport, also said he was disappointed at not being invited to participate in the composting task force's deliberations. The committee is charged with considering the value of the airport and recommending ways to make the facility more viable.

"Given our broad and long connections to the many stake-holders with regard to the airport and the surrounding Baylands area, I am surprised and dismayed at our non-inclusion, and am open to suggestions as to how to more formally include our participation in the composting project," Creemer wrote.

The plan to build a compost facility on airport land has also been rejected by the Federal Aviation Administration, which would need to approve any changes to land-use at the airport site. On Sept. 24, the federal agency sent a letter to Santa Clara County Roads and Airports Department arguing that the airport has no excess land to spare. The letter also states that the proposed composting facility "may create a wildlife hazard problem for aircraft landing and taking off at the airport."

"These factors dictate against the proposal to locate a composting facility on airport property," the letter states. "Justification does not exist to allow airport property to be converted to a non-aeronautical use.

"In view of the circumstances, the Federal Aviation Administration cannot support the proposal and objects to the proposed use of airport land for the composting site."

But task forces argued that the federal agency might change its stance if the city could turn its airport into a "model for sustainability." The task force recommends in its report that the city hire a consultant to prepare a "facilities plan" and to begin working on an environmental analysis and design of the new facility, which the group hopes to have in place by 2021.

"With sustainability fuels integrated into the airport, the FAA might find Palo Alto's airport a model of sustainability in airport operations," task force members Craig Barney, Cedric de La Beaujardiere and Bob Wenzlau wrote in a memo to the council. "One airport advocate thought that enhancing the sustainability of the airport would ease expected regulatory bars set by the FAA and the County.

"Potential harmonizing of compost, airport operations within the framework of the Baylands Master Plan moves Palo Alto toward a vision of a sustainable community that develops innovative accommodations to land-use challenges."

The City Council meeting will begin at 7 p.m. tonight (Monday, Oct. 19) in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave.

— Gennady Sheyner