Approaching by air from the south, theHarwood landfill is visible for miles. It presents a massive, ugly scar on the steep hillside above the Branscomb Mill. Although it contains nearly a million cubic yards and looks impressive from the air, it is only average for modern bark disposal sites and substantially smaller than LP's York disposal site.
Located 13 miles west of Laytonville, the Mill employs about 250 people and produces approximately 100,000 board feet per shift, three shifts a day. Like other local mills, the Harwoods burned their wood wastes until more stringent air pollution regulations brought an end to the era of tee-pee burners. Faced with a mounting pile of wood waste they resorted to burying the wastes in a canyon behind the Mill.
A 5 acre landfill was originally permitted in 1977 for disposal of wood waste from the Mill yard. By December 1988 the landfill operator and Mill staff estimated the site had been expanded to 14 acres and included a total landfill volume of 821,000 cubic yards, this in spite of the fact that the County use permit had expired in January 1987. Operation is still ongoing and, judging from the newly denuded hillsides, still expanding.
In early 1989, Harwood Products applied for a new permit, one which would allow expansion to 27 acres and include the disposal of boiler ash from its proposed biomass plant as well as wood waste from the Mill. According to the application, another 800,000 cubic yards of fill are to be added over the next 20 years with fill depths reaching 140 feet.
Harwood proposes to operate the landfill seven days a week, 24 hours a day, on a year-round basis. Despite the massive scale of the project and a long history of violations at the existing site, the County Planning Department has recommended a Negative Declaration, stating, "No significant environmental impacts are anticipated which cannot be adequately mitigated." It's business as usual in Mendocino County. One can't help but wonder what it would take for them to recommend an Environmental Impact Report.
Although Environmental Health officials conducted only one inspection of the landfill during its first 10 years of operation, a review of their files reveals 16 violations between March 1987 and January 1989. These included overly steep slopes, erosion, solid waste standing in ponded water, leachate flowing into Buck Creek, inadequate cover, residential and business wastes being disposed of, lack of records and failure to pay fees. The file includes photos of badly eroded slopes and inadequately covered fill standing in ponded water.
A review of Regional Water Quality files pertaining to the landfill reveals a long record of water quality violations. Between May 1987 and May 1988 (the period for which I have records), the turbidity in Buck Creek, a small tributary flowing through the landfill, increased by an average of 4300% as it passed through the landfill. A 20% increase is allowable. The Mill yard borders the South Fork of the Eel River where turbidity increases of up to 1300% have been recorded between sampling stations above and below the Mill. The primary offender is the muddy discharges from Buck Creek.
In spite of the numerous violations, Harwood has never been fined and seldom receives a threatening letter. Environmental Health, the Lead Enforcement Agency, was ready to rubber stamp the expanded operation in January until they received a scathing 8 page letter from the California Waste Management Board pointing out numerous violations of the existing permit.
To Harwood's credit, he has had a study conducted by the Eureka Engineering firm of Selvage-Heber-Nelson and Associates. If their plan and the County's proposed mitigations are implemented and adhered to, environmental impacts should be reduced. However, the Engineering study leaves many unanswered questions and fails to address any aternatives to burial. These are questions best addressed by an Environmental Impact Report.
Meanwhile in a more enlightened part of the world, a small mill in Sonoma County, Barry's Sawmill, is selling 100% of its wood waste to Santa Rosa landscaping businesses. Barry's Mill runs an incredibly clean operation. The lady who spoke to me in their office told me she thought their total waste flow was about 400 cubic yards per day. She said she thought they could easily sell 4 times that amount since the demand was growing rapidly. But the market necessitates a clean product. Barry's solved their cleanliness problem by selectively paving the portions of the mill where the logs were most frequently handled. Compared to the cost of operating a landfill, the price of the paving was small.
The Harwood permit hearing is scheduled for August in Ukiah.
Right now, approval of the expanded site seems to be a foregone conclusion. Approval of this permit will result in another 20 years of water quality problems and the waste of a valuable resource. As any gardener knows, organic matter is the most important soil constituent. While the fertility of our forests declines, it seems a complete waste to burn or bury biomass. Like any other resource, it should be intelligently recycled. Perhaps with some enlightened and constructive opposition, Harwood can be convinced there are better ways to deal with wood waste than simply burying or burning it.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2003
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