Cortina Landfill Update

Pam Nieberg (February 2009)

The Yolano Group and Colusa County Citizens for Safe Water (CCCSW) would like to thank our members for helping in the fight against the Cortina landfill proposal. Your participation is making a difference. EPA is listening to our concerns and is giving the proposal careful scrutiny.

The project would destroy the pristine environment on the Cortina Ridge and threaten the downstream watershed with pollution from the landfill. Liners inevitably leak, and this landfill would be sited in a seismically active area and on highly unstable soil, making it especially vulnerable to failure. In addition, the landfill developers have asked EPA to grant waivers for EPA's standards for landfill liners, daily and final covers, proximity to seismic faults, and requirements for ground water monitoring and compliance. The developers also provide no assurances for funding for long-term monitoring, maintenance and mitigation for spills and leaks at the landfill post-closure.

We received some good news from EPA in December. In a recent letter, EPA's Regional Associate Director for Waste Management stated that additional analysis is needed under the National Environmental Policy Act for the five flexibility request waivers sought by the landfill developers. This means that EPA will review and consider potential environmental impacts of the landfill project in determining whether to issue any project approvals. While the scope of the review is not yet known, it is not uncommon for such reviews to take a year or more. This will give the public, environmental resource agencies and local governments the opportunity to provide further comments on the project. Review of the flexibility request waivers themselves has currently been suspended pending additional information from the landfill developers. EPA sent three of the waiver requests back as inadequate. Once the applicants respond, EPA will begin the review and the NEPA process.

We have also been working to get resolutions against the project from jurisdictions whose waste would be trucked to the landfill. These include Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. Last year, we sent a mailing to Sierra Club members in these Counties asking them to sign letters of opposition to the landfill and cards to their supervisors asking them to exclude the Cortina Ridge as a destination for their waste. Representatives from the Yolano Group and CCCSW spoke before these Boards of Supervisors, presenting them with the cards and copies of the letters and asking them to adopt resolutions opposing the landfill and to ensure that the Cortina landfill would be specifically excluded from consideration in any bidding process for waste haulers. We have recently received a formal resolution opposing the landfill from the Napa County Board of Supervisors and are following up with the other counties. At our request, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors has also adopted a resolution opposing the landfill due to concerns with inadequate environmental mitigations and lack of performance bonding and regulatory oversight.

For more information on the landfill, see Colusa County Citizen for Safe Water or "Issues" on this website. You can also contact Pam at 530-756-6856 or pnieberg@dcn.davis.ca.us if you would like to write or sign a letter or help us out in any way.