This article was written by BenitoLink intern Meghan Lee. Lea este artículo en español aquí.
The Board of Supervisors and county staff discussed various strategies for handling San Benito County’s waste management at its March 25 meeting. The John Smith Road Landfill (JSRL), which handles all of the county’s trash, has around 13 years of capacity remaining before it closes.
Members of the Sanitary Ad Hoc Committee, which was convened in 2024, worked with staff to research solutions to present at the meeting. The committee consists of Supervisors Dom Zanger and Angela Curro, whose districts include and are adjacent to the landfill.
Staff from Integrated Waste Management, which oversees JSRL, presented four ways of dealing with the county’s waste in the future: a transfer station, a resource recovery center, a smaller-scale expansion of the existing landfill, or a large-scale expansion of JSRL. Integrated Waste Management is seeking feedback from supervisors and the public on next steps.
Celina Stotler, who manages Integrated Waste Management in San Benito County, said that Waste Connections has expressed interest in a small-scale expansion of the landfill, which would be limited to 300 to 500 tons a day. She also said Waste Connections could still apply to expand the landfill further, as has been discussed for decades.
“It is possible that the landfill operator may submit a new project application to the county for proposed expansion at some point in the future, but at this point in time, the county has not yet received any such application,” Stotler said.
The passage of Measure A in November makes it more difficult for the county to significantly expand JSRL. Previously, the Board of Supervisors could designate land for projects like landfill expansion without voter approval. Now, landfill expansion must go before voters for approval.
Both Zanger and Curro emphasized that a smaller-scale expansion of JSRL would only take in-county trash. In 2010, the county agreed to take out-of-county trash to raise revenue to offset its budget deficit. Until 2022, an estimated 80% of the trash entering the landfill came from Santa Clara County. JSRL stopped taking out-of-county trash when the landfill had 15 years of capacity remaining.
JSRL’s acceptance of out-of-county trash became controversial when Waste Connections, which operates the landfill, was applying to expand the landfill in 2021. Zanger noted that Waste Connections “also expressed interest in that being an in-county-only expansion, which I think is just an important piece of information, just knowing the community.”
Curro said that there may be an opportunity for the county to amend or even renegotiate the contract with JSRL, which she said could lead to more transparency.
“I thought that was a huge step forward to have just the conversation of being open to negotiate a new contract could be very good for the public and for staff,” she said.
The other supervisors said they wanted more information on transfer stations or other alternatives before deciding.
Integrated Waste Management staff said they did not have cost estimates for the transfer station or resource recovery center because the plans are so preliminary.
Sangeeta Lewis, the county’s solid waste engineering consultant, gave ballpark estimates for both of the options: “I would say, $10 million, $12 million, really roughly, but we do want to hone in on those costs and be able to present something that we can feel really confident about to the board.”
The transfer station would be located at the entrance to JSRL, while the resource recovery center would be across John Smith Road. Lewis said that there would be limited space for the transfer station option, and could present more engineering and cost challenges.
Supervisors Kollin Kosmicki and Ignacio Velazquez said they wanted more information on alternatives not mentioned in the staff’s presentation. Velazquez said he was even curious about other strategies.
“I haven’t heard anything else about what is happening around the world,” he said. “What are other countries, cities, states, doing? I know there’s a lot of new technologies out there. I’d like to hear about some of those.”
The supervisors also expressed an interest in more community outreach and more information on the county’s options, which Integrated Waste Management staff agreed to present in three months.
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