Leading up to the global weather event that is El Niño, several environmental groups filed civil actions—essentially lawsuits—against governments in Santa Barbara County out of concern that massive amounts of rainwater could carry polluting runoff from landfills into nearby streams, where endangered steelhead trout reproduce.
The Waterkeeper Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit with affiliates on the Central Coast and throughout the world, filed two lawsuits in the county. SLO Coastkeeper, affiliated with Waterkeeper and a program of the nonprofit Environment in the Public Interest (EPI), initiated a lawsuit against the city of Santa Maria in federal court on Nov. 4.
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper—also affiliated with Waterkeeper—filed a lawsuit against the county on Dec. 18, and the Ecological Rights Foundation (a Garberville, Calif., nonprofit) filed one against the city of Lompoc on June 11.
According to EPI Executive Director Gordon Hensley, the nonprofit functions as a watchdog for local agencies and advocates for the public’s interest in “core” environmental laws that revolve around water, such as the Clean Water Act and the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act.
The purpose of the lawsuits, according to Hensley, is to ensure that the local governments are complying with the Clean Water Act and stormwater permits.
With the lawsuit against Santa Maria, EPI is seeking injunctive relief, civil penalties, and attorneys’ fees for the city’s “substantive and procedural violations” of both of these acts.
Neither Hensley nor city officials would specify what the violations were. However, Hensley mentioned there were some compliance issues and that his organization doesn’t exactly “see eye to eye” with the city on landfill containment.
In the lawsuit, EPI alleges that the city does not have an adequate stormwater pollution prevention plan (SWPPP) for the landfill, which the nonprofit says is a source of contaminated stormwater discharge.
Located in a remote area approximately a mile from the nearest neighborhood in the city, the 118-acre landfill sits along the bank of Suey Creek, surrounded by hundreds of acres of farmland. A steady stream of heavy trucks, as well as pickups, produce mechanical roars and kick up clouds of dust as they move in and out of the facility on a daily basis.
According to the lawsuit, the SWPPP obtained by EPI states that the landfill accepts municipal and industrial waste, including hazardous household materials like ink toner cartridges, used motor oil, and antifreeze, among other materials.
The waste is dropped off, weighed, and compacted into the landfill. The recyclable stuff and green waste (tree and grass clippings, etc.) is sent off to separate facilities.
Specifically, though, EPI alleges in the lawsuit that Santa Maria doesn’t maintain an adequate SWPPP—a requirement for all industrial sites—that identifies all pollutants associated with the landfill and best management practices.
As required by stringent federal and state laws, Santa Maria is required to contain the landfill. The conventional method is to cover it with a series of tarps, which the city uses when it closes the landfill down each day.
According to the landfill’s deputy manager, Jason Stillwell, the city not only complies with the Clean Water Act and stormwater permits, but also exceeds its requirements.
As rainwater comes in contact with the landfill, he explained, an impermeable layer at the base captures it. This layer keeps pollutants from “perking down and out,” Stillwell said.
Best management practices are constantly evolving, said Keith Quinlan, the solid waste superintendent for Lompoc who’s named as a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits. He added that the city is heavily regulated by various local and state agencies.
Lompoc’s using several methods to reduce the discharge from the landfill, such as straw wattles, which look like long straw-filled tubes, that reduce erosion and Filtrexx socks to capture heavy metals.
“You continually have to put in best management practices,” Quinlan said, adding that Lompoc’s landfill faces an extra burden because it sits in a canyon, a natural path for water flow, and receives runoff from other areas. “One of things with the Clean Water Act is that when water comes onto your land, you’re responsible for it.”
The landfills abide by the same regulations and hold a similar setup as the Casmalia Superfund site, which utilizes a series of pumps to capture polluted water. Anything too polluted is shipped off to a separate facility to be further cleaned.
Stillwell from Santa Maria says the city takes steps to make sure that landfill material isn’t removed by wind or rainfall, adding that landfill workers developed a way to compact the waste as the site fills up. This extends the life of the landfill and saves the city money.
“We want to make sure that the landfill is sustainable, meaning that it won’t cause pollution in the future,” Stillwell said.
EPI argues that it’s not just the landfill itself but the day-to-day operations at the landfill that contribute to pollution: The use and maintenance of equipment and machinery, vehicle and equipment fueling, and the access roads are also responsible.
It’s not just the landfill that’s responsible for polluting stormwater runoff, but the surrounding farms, too, Hensley said.
Stormwater sampling taken by EPI indicate that the concentrations of pollutions from the landfill are “above benchmark levels” of the Clean Water Act, according to the lawsuit, which also states that discharged stormwater with a high pH level (highly alkaline) can damage the gills and skin of aquatic organisms and cause death.
Even a slight shift of pH levels in water can cause its organisms to become stressed or die, the lawsuit states.
But there is good news for everyone, including the steelhead trout. Hensley said the city was prompt in its response to the lawsuit, and both parties are in settlement discussions.
“There is a chance that there will be lots of water and steelhead, and we’re hoping that we can improve that situation a little bit,” Hensley said.
Staff Writer David Minsky can be reached at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 7-14, 2016.