After almost getting shut down by the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District last year for noncompliance, one cannabis company agreed to pay more than $1.3 million for its polluting ways.
Central Coast Agriculture will now hold the incredible title of paying more than any other for violating air pollution regulations in the county—even more than quite possibly the worst oil company in county history.
“The magnitude of this settlement reflects the significance of the violations and the amount of emissions over three years,” APCD Executive Director and Air Pollution Control Officer Aeron Arlin Genet said.
The grow operation and cannabis processor, which sells its products under the Raw Garden brand and touts its commitment to water conservation and organic growing practices, didn’t really adhere to “green” practices when it came to the rest of its operation.
“Raw Garden has consistently put out award-winning Clean Green certified cannabis oils since 2015,” Raw Garden’s website states. “The result is a brand that consumers can purchase with confidence that not only are they getting a premium product, but their consumer dollars are supporting environmentally sound, sustainable farming practices.”
I guess the APCD didn’t get the memo?
In October 2020, the APCD dinged Central Cost Ag for operating manufacturing equipment without a permit and for emitting byproducts of that process, without emission reduction technology. In March 2021, the APCD dinged Central Coast Ag again (14 different times!) for illegally operating diesel generators to run the facility.
How’d you like to be its neighbor!? It probably doesn’t smell environmentally sound.
The $1.3 million voluntary settlement was for the years of continuing to operate its manufacturing equipment without a permit, something the cannabis company was almost shut down for last October, before a last-minute save, where it actually submitted an application and opined that it was building the plane while flying it because cannabis was such a new industry—meanwhile, the APCD had permitted other local cannabis manufacturers, so WTF?
I guess Central Coast Ag didn’t get the memo.
Well, at least not last year. But the memo must have landed somewhere in the interim, as Arlin Genet said the company is currently complying with the terms of the permit. Great!
Now, the company is waiting on more emission equipment to get here so it can reduce its emissions by 90 percent. Phew! That took a lot.
You know what else takes a lot. Housing the homeless. With the help of an $8 million grant, Santa Barbara County and nonprofit New Beginnings are hoping to house 300 people in two years. The collaboration wants to take a bite out of the segment of unhoused individuals that grew the most year over year: the number of folks living in their cars increased by 16 percent from 2023 to 2024.
For the cost of roughly $26,000 per person, the project aims to put them in permanent housing. Doesn’t sound like much when you really think about it. Especially when you consider wraparound services and the cost of running safe parking sites, finding housing, and helping pay for housing.
I wish them luck. And the hope that this project does a better job of doing the job than SLO County did with its problem child of a safe parking site program.
The Canary doesn’t have any answers. Send some to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 13-23, 2024.