Publication Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2004
City wants vote on new garbage center
City wants vote on new garbage center
(March 10, 2004) Landfill scheduled to be closed in 2011, and environments want to keep plan for parkland
by Bill D'Agostino
Environmenally conscious Palo Altans may be forced to choose between open space and keeping local control of its garbage, if the city places the fate of its landfill on the November ballot.
The city's dump, located near the San Francisco Bay, is scheduled to completely fill to capacity in a few years. Instead of turning all 137 acres into parkland, as has been planned for many years, the city wants to continue processing some of the city's trash on a portion of that land.
That change, which appears to require voter-approval, is likely to cause controversy since some environmentalists don't want to lose any long-promised green space. But city administrators insist there is environmental value to keeping some garbage in town, in addition to cost savings.
"It's a very sensitive issue," Public Works Director Glenn Roberts said. "It's got some major policy trade-off questions that have to be looked at."
One-third of the city's waste currently goes to the city's 137-acre municipal landfill. The dump, however, is scheduled to completely shut down in 2011. Approximately 80 acres have already been closed off.
The city's longstanding plans call for all the land to become entirely open space, and for the remaining trash to go to Sunnyvale, where the majority of the city's garbage already goes.
Public works officials, though, are hoping to change that arrangement to allow for a 19-acre "Environmental Services Center," a $3.6 million facility where residents could conveniently bring their recycling, hazardous waste and compost.
Amending the current plan appears to require a citywide vote, and city administrators are aiming to place it on the November ballot. A council committee is scheduled to study the issue in late April.
Some parkland advocates are concerned about the possibility of losing long-promised open space.
"For over 25 years, we've been waiting for the landfill to close for this park to be completed," former Councilwoman Emily Renzel said.
The land -- near a major city preserve and subject to liquefaction -- is not appropriate for continued trash processing, especially hazardous waste, Renzel argued.
"It's downhill from what is supposed to be a pastoral park. Both the noise and the odors from this thing will go there," she said. "If this was a private industry, we would never allow it to be in that location."
City public works officials argue there's no other viable location in Palo Alto, and that there is some environmental justices in having the city keep some of its own garbage locally.
When Clark Akatiff, the former director of the landfill, retired last year, he made the following plea to the council: "If we move all waste and recycling facilities out of town, we are merely hiding things and having communities less privileged that ours do our dirty work. That, I submit, it not the Palo Alto way."
Around 66,000 residents visit the landfill annually, according to Michael Jackson, the city's deputy director of public works. "If those facilities leave Palo Alto, those vehicles will making trips elsewhere down the road," he said.
Without having a solid waste program in Palo Alto, the city would also lose its ability to lobby for more environmental practices statewide, public works officials also argued.
Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto wonders if there is a middle ground.
"You could have a local collection that isn't 19 acres," she said. "It's not all or nothing."
At the same time, Kishimoto, a staunch believer in preserving all of Palo Alto's parkland, also said there "would have to be a significant amount of justification" for her to agree "to put any built facility in the Baylands."
Bill D'Agostino can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com
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