Guest Opinion: World-class resource recovery vs. 19 acres of 1,500-acre park Guest Opinion: World-class resource recovery vs. 19 acres of 1,500-acre park (June 16, 2004)

by Walt Hays

Xalo Alto owns a 137-acre landfill site, of which 14 acres are currently devoted to activities such as recycling and composting.

The landfill is scheduled to close in 2011, and current plans call for the whole site, including all but three acres of the recycling center, to be added to Byxbee Park.

The city currently delivers one-third of its waste to our landfill and the other two-thirds to the Sunnyvale Material Recovery and Transfer (SMaRT) Station, from which it is hauled to the Kirby Canyon Landfill in San Jose. Under current plans, starting in 2011, virtually all waste and recycling will have to go to Sunnyvale.

City staff is proposing to add five acres to the current recycling site to build an Environmental Service Center (ESC). The ESC would include our own transfer station, full-scale recycling, composting and a permanent facility for disposal of household hazardous waste. Because that would take land currently planned for a park, it would require voter approval. Staff reports also discussed -- but did not recommend -- several reduced alternatives, ranging from six acres to zero.

Requirements related to closing the landfill require a decision by 2005. To meet that deadline, a decision must be made before the end of this year.

While the staff prefers the 19-acre alternative, the only recommendation it is making at this time is that a full environmental impact report (EIR) be prepared, analyzing the pros and cons of all alternatives -- including others that may be suggested by the public. Whatever decision is ultimately made, it will be better informed if we do the EIR.

Pending what the EIR says, here are my reasons for supporting the staff's recommendation:

1) Palo Alto currently has an outstanding recycling program. State law requires that all cities divert at least 50 percent of waste. We diverted 61 percent in 2001. The ESC would enable us to upgrade to world-class. The other alternatives would diminish the program to mediocre at best. They would also go totally contrary to sustainability, which all City Council members have pledged to support.

2) Forcing people to go to Sunnyvale to recycle or "dump" would require them to make up to 128,000 round trips of 20 miles. This makes zero sense, considering that global warming from fossil fuels is arguably our biggest environmental threat, not to mention the cost in gas, air pollution and time. (There were 67,313 vehicles trips to the landfill in 2003 and 61,849 to the recycling center.) People would likely just throw more in their garbage cans, or even dump them illegally, which would could easily reduce our diversion to less than 50 percent, subjecting the city to fines of up to $10,000 a day.

3) An economic study estimated that the ESC would cost the city $1 million less than continuing with the SMaRT Station. In addition, the city's Refuse Fund, which handles solid waste, would pay the General Fund $1.9 million in rent for the 19 acres -- funds which the city could certainly use.

In terms of impact on the park, the first thing to recognize is that the 19 acres are not and never have been a park, except on paper. They have for more than 70 years been part of the landfill.

So the issue is whether they should be retained for recycling or converted to a park. And the decision to plan that conversion was made nearly 40 years ago, before people became conscious of the vital importance of resource conservation (recycling). The city's 1998 Comprehensive Plan -- adopted many years after the park dedication -- calls for the city to "maintain and expand the use of the recycling enter at the city's refuse disposal area."

The impact of the ESC on Byxbee Park would be minimal. The park without the landfill is 1,500 acres. Retaining 19 acres for the ESC would still convert 85 percent of the 137-acre landfill to park. The transfer station part of the ESC would be enclosed in a building certified by LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), virtually eliminating noise and odor. It would be hidden as much as possible by berms and landscaping. (People love the current park, even though it is adjacent to an active, open-air landfill, full of offensive noise and odors.)

Some people -- and even the Weekly -- have suggested other locations for the ESC, such as the Municipal Service Center (MSC) or the site of the former Los Altos Treatment Plant at the end of San Antonio Road. The facts, however, are that (a) the MSC is already overcrowded; and (b) the former plant site is jointly owned with Los Altos, which is demanding $6.4 million for its half interest.

And there just isn't time for Karen White's suggestion of a nine-month study by an ad hoc committee. All conceivable alternatives can be thoroughly analyzed if the council just decides to include them in all in the EIR.

Walt Hays is a retired lawyer, part-time professional mediator, chair of the Sustainability Partnership and grandson of the man for whom Walter Hays School is named. He can be e-mailed at wkhays@igc.org.

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