Landfill battle flares anew

Eleven years into a campaign to thwart plans for a tribe-owned landfill in western Colusa County, supervisors and residents hope to open a second front - going to federal regulators to curb or reshape the project in hopes of protecting water supplies.

In a well-attended and often passionate board meeting Tuesday, landowners and residents called for seeking help from federal lawmakers and environmental authorities - still hopeful the county might yet reshape the waste-disposal plan.

“Yes, the reservation is a nation-state; yes, it has sovereignty,” said Colleen Ferrini, one of about 30 members of the anti-landfill group Colusa Citizens for Safe Water to attend the meeting. “But we’re on their border and we have just as much right to our safety and just as much right to protect ourselves.”

A succession of foes sought new federal scrutiny on the landfill proposed by the Cortina Band of Wintun Indians and its business partners - the Vancouver-based Earthworks Industries Inc., which would develop the facility, and North Bay Corp., a Santa Rosa trash hauler.

North Bay in April agreed to pay Earthworks up to $16 million in cash and loans in exchange for a half share of the 443-acre landfill.

Plans call for more than 12 million tons of refuse to be trucked to the site over 25 years, starting with 300 tons a day and eventually hauling in up to 1,500.

The appearance by the Safe Water group, which has fought the waste center plan for about a decade, is the first public campaign against the project since supervisors abandoned a federal lawsuit in October because of mounting legal fees.

The suit Colusa County filed against the U.S. Interior Department in 2003 claimed the landfill’s environmental review was flawed. On Tuesday, opponents urged supervisors to pass a resolution criticizing the waste center as a threat to water quality, saying steep-sloped land would carry polluted rainwater onto neighboring lands and also compromise groundwater sources below.

But lawmakers postponed a vote, electing to hold off until the tribe seeks permission from the Environmental Protection Agency for exemptions from landfill design rules.

In the meantime, some supervisors said, the best course is to aggressively bring pollution concerns to the EPA and Congress members - the only ones still able to curb the tribe’s plans.

“The county can’t fight a sovereign nation; only a sovereign nation can fight a sovereign nation,” said Supervisor Daniel C. Yerxa. “When you talk about the EPA doing evaluations, that’s your best chance to defeat this thing. We need to stir the pot, to paper the halls of Congress.

“Don’t wait. You’ve got to start now; you’ve got to start carrying the ball.”

Appeal-Democrat reporter Howard Yune can be reached at 749-4708. You may e-mail him at hyune@appealdemocrat.com.