Publication Date: Wednesday, July 28, 2004
A line in the marsh
A line in the marsh
(July 28, 2004) by Don Kazak
Emily Renzel is trying to draw a line in the marsh. The former Palo Alto City Council member is well known as a protector of the baylands. A section of baylands is even named after her.
Renzel wants to stop any consideration of a staff proposal to build an "environmental services center" where the recycling center now is in the baylands. That would happen in 2011, when the dump closes.
Environmental services center is a fancy name for a place to take bottles, cans, newsprint and yard clippings -- a recycling center.
It could be more. The city staff is kicking around ideas with others to build something that might have an educational component, Assistant City Manager Emily Harrison said.
Renzel wants none of that.
What happens in 2011 when the dump closes has become an issue because the council will decide Monday night whether to ask for proposals to do an environmental impact report (EIR) for the project.
Anything involving the baylands always has been politicized before it gets out of the gate, and that's happened here.
Renzel told the city's Parks and Recreation Commission last month that "a decision has been made that there will be an EIR. It's been a back-door process."
Renzel argues that the council never gave the "start" for this process, although such a center has been discussed by three city commissions since 2002 and was the subject of a council study session in April.
"You don't have to do an EIR to say we don't want to go any further with this," Renzel said.
Councilwoman Dena Mossar said that even if the proposal is staff-generated, that's what he staff is supposed to do.
"The council always knew the dump was going to close and the staff should have a proposal for what to do about that," Mossar said. "That's their job."
Renzel's argument is that the site in the baylands has been dedicated parkland since 1965, and the plan is that it would become a park once the dump closes.
Among other things, the ESC plan may mean a need for a public vote to undedicate the 19-acre site to build a permanent recycling center.
The argument for the center is that when the dump closes and people have things to recycle that aren't taken care of by the curbside program, they will have to drive them down to a recycling center in Sunnyvale, which Palo Alto helped pay for -- a 15- to 20-mile round trip. There's an environmental cost to either option.
So the nine council members, all of whom are sensitive to environmental issues, have some thinking to do before Monday night.
"This stuff is tough, it's complicated and there are no easy answers," said Mossar, who has her own environmentalist credentials as a former
staff member at the old Peninsula Conservation Center.
There are guesstimates that three council members may vote against doing the EIR, short of the five needed to kill the project.
This may be shaping up as one of those issues with hardened positions and little or no middle ground for compromise.
The primary argument for doing the EIR is to identify impacts of and alternatives to the project - a requirement of the California Environmental Quality Act.
"How can one not look at all the possibilities?" asks Vice Mayor Jim Burch.
For Renzel, though, merely thinking about putting something permanent in the baylands would be a violation of the voter approval in 1965 that the whole baylands be a park once the dump was closed. Since it seems the 19 acres would have to be undedicated, this may be a question best answered by Palo Alto voters, not just the council.
There may also be a way to build a facility in the Baylands that would enhance the 137-acre park instead of detracting from it, but Renzel doesn't buy it.
Renzel is a persuasive and persistent steward of the baylands. But that doesn't mean a recycling facility shouldn't even be considered.
"This is dedicated parkland," said Parks and Recreation Commission member Jeanette Marquess at the group's June meeting. "Before we make it anything other than parkland, we need to think long and hard about it."
The fight shouldn't be over the EIR, though. The fight should be over the idea.
Weekly Senior Staff Writer Don Kazak can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com.
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