Dutra must find compatible site

<p>The public dialogue on the Dutra asphalt plant’s proposed location has spilled over into a classic letter-to-the-editor debate, but not one has proposed an alternative site, thereby saving the integrity of Shollenberger Park, and preventing the construction of an asphalt plant as a structural and odorous icon for the entrance into Sonoma County and the city of Petaluma.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>A viable alternative site proposal, subject to study and a supplemental EIR, has been formally submitted to the county planning department and members of the Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Kerns can solve the location problem in his district by offering Dutra a site on the secluded back end of the 400-acre county refuse property on Meacham Road. </p><p>The county site contains 20 million cubic yards of rock, some of which may be suitable for asphalt production, to save the complicated, energy-intensive barging of rock from Marin County to Haystack Landing. Most people are unaware that the Dutra proposal at Haystack plans to bring in recycling materials, i.e. old pavement, and asphalt cement, the petroleum component of the mix, by truck — not by barge. The trucking and recycling part of their operation can function just as well at the refuse site.</p><p>Highway 101 is a short distance away for transport of the hot asphalt. Methane gas produced by the county dump can be used to heat the asphalt. Used asphalt shingles and tarpaper, having no recycling market, could be used as feedstock for asphalt.</p><p>Every yard of rock removal represents a potential of half a ton of garbage capacity. Combined with increasing emphasis on recycling, the life of the dump could be extended 50 years. Fifty-year disposal capacity can lead to the re-assembly of the nine-city consortium to use in-county management of our waste and avoid hauling garbage to destinations outside the county. The generation of jobs by this reconfiguration far outnumbers the jobs generated by the Haystack Landing proposal. </p><p>The county, unable to find a new refuse site after a 20-year search, should retain the 400-acre site if for no other reason than to have a location for those unknown needs in the future for activities that are shunned by the public. At the same time, abandoning the Haystack Landing asphalt plant site would remove the plant’s impacts on Shollenberger Park, its 150,000 visitors and its wildlife. </p><p>The supervisors’ straw vote endorsing the Haystack site disregards the Petaluma voter-mandated urban growth boundary. The 1996 Board of Supervisors promised each city’s electorate that if they voted for a UGB, no change in zoning would happen within the boundary. In addition, the Dutra asphalt plant would be located within the countywide voter-mandated scenic corridor between Petaluma and Marin County.</p><p>The unanimous vote against the Haystack location by the Petaluma City Council, a stand since endorsed by five other cities, should in itself require a move to a new location — if indeed we need another asphalt plant in the face of EIR studies revealing that adequate asphalt production facilities already exist in the county.</p><p>Sonoma County Conserv-ation Action, Madrone Audubon Society, Petaluma Wetlands Alliance, and Petaluma River Council, and Moms For Clean Air have endorsed the alternative site study. </p><p>A statement from the North Bay Labor Council, while endorsing Dutra, urges opponents to offer an alternative solution. This we have done.</p><p><i>(Joan Cooper is a spokesperson for Friends of Shollenberger Park and Clean Air and was the founder and co-president of Biobottoms, a Petaluma mail order company from 1981 to 1996. She is a 21-year resident of Petaluma.)</p>