[USCC] Mariposa County Composting Plant

[McNelly, Patrick]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-compost5apr05,
1,2313728.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

New composting plant fails the smell test

Disposing of Yosemite park's garbage is a green innovation, but it
brings olfactory distress to those living downwind.

By Eric Bailey
Times Staff Writer

April 5, 2007

MARIPOSA, CALIF. - Forty miles from the sweet pine scents of Yosemite
Valley, the national park's garbage is contributing to a royal stink.

In this little town on the west Sierra slope, a gleaming new composting
plant is busy converting trash from Yosemite and the rest of Mariposa
County.

Sam Spaulding, who lives just above it, said there are days when it
reeks like a dead animal. Other times it's like sewage.

Spaulding said he doesn't mind the park depositing its biodegradables
practically in his backyard, but "sometimes it's so strong up here it
burns your eyes. After this thing got going - pee-u-wee!"

When the $8-million composting operation opened next to Mariposa's
landfill last year, Mariposa County officials praised it as an
innovative, green-minded solution to the region's growing garbage
disposal needs. Environmentally sensitive composting seemed perfect for
a region that depends on tourist traffic heading up California Highway
140 to one of America's most beloved national parks.

Composting also fit the environmental ethos at Yosemite, which has an
award-winning recycling program to divert cans, bottles and tons of
other reusable materials from its trash.

As boosters envisioned it, the new plant would slash the volume of
garbage by half and produce enough compost to eliminate any need for the
costly 1,000 dump trucks of dirt brought in each year to blanket the
landfill.

But now, as neighbors complain about odors much worse than from the old
landfill, county sanitation and health officials are scrambling for
answers. 

"We have a vocal minority, but they're very vocal," said Dana
Hertfelder, the county's public works director. "They never have been in
favor of it, and the odor problem has given them something to grab on
to."

Yosemite officials say they are eager to see a remedy.

In the old days, the park operated dumps right in the valley. Rangers
used to make a show of feeding bears at the Curry Village garbage pit.
But after World War II, Yosemite started sending its trash to the
Mariposa landfill. Most years, trash from the park accounts for about
40% of the dump's refuse stream.

The park and other federal agencies provided most of the money to build
the new plant, a near twin of a composting operation outside Yellowstone
National Park.

And they're watching.

"The composting facility is not working as well as it should be," park
spokesman Scott Gediman said.

Sanitation officials say the plant's odor problem appears to stem from
the idiosyncrasies of trash disposal in Mariposa County. 

Residents of the rural region used to simply burn their trash in empty
55-gallon oil drums. But that pioneer-style practice fell to the state
air board's regulatory rules a few years back. Because the county has
never offered municipal garbage collection, most residents took to
loading household waste in pickups for routine dump runs.

Unfortunately, that flood of rubbish - 14,000 tons a year - is not the
stuff of which good compost is made.

Outside of Yosemite, most residents don't bother to recycle. Instead,
they send a blizzard of empty soft-drink bottles and other plastics into
the plant's eight concrete-walled composting vessels.

The result is a malodorous mix.

Hertfelder, the public works chief, is optimistic that a little public
education on the merits of recycling can help the county's composting
cause. 

Meanwhile, plant managers have fixed a balky biofilter that wasn't
properly sifting out the smell and installed a deodorizing spray system.


If the remedial steps don't reduce the stench, there's talk of enclosing
- at an additional cost of $200,000 - the portion of the plant where the
finished compost is stored outside.

"I do believe we'll get the odors under control," Hertfelder said. "As
much as Ruth gets mad at me, it is a landfill, and trash does have an
odor."

Hertfelder was referring to Ruth Sellers, a well-known Mariposa civic
player who lives in a tidy ranchette across California 49 from the
plant. 

During planning stages a few years back, Sellers was among the plant's
most vocal opponents; she would have preferred that the county find a
new dump far out of town. An inveterate Republican, Sellers also
objected to county leaders taking pricey junkets to tour composting
plants.

That was then, and the smell is her main concern now.

"What's coming out of there isn't compost. It's garbage," she said.
"They're speeding up the rotting, is all."

By building the plant, Mariposa is catering to the wishes of Yosemite,
Sellers added. "We're put at a disadvantage for the benefit of the
park."

Not all of her neighbors want to criticize Yosemite, which they know is
a prime draw for tourist dollars.

"If Yosemite wasn't there, we wouldn't get any business," said Mike
Butler, an auto mechanic who has lived all of his 45 years on a hill
overlooking the landfill. "My problem is with that composting plant.
It's a white elephant."

Last Thanksgiving, the odor reached such putrid proportions that
Butler's mother canceled the usual feast at her trailer on the family
property. Sometimes, he said, the smell seeps in under the door.

Up the road, Spaulding, who carves tombstones, says the foul smell has
chased off one of his employees who became nauseated from it.

Three times in recent months, Spaulding lamented, customers shopping for
headstones turned tail and left, complaining about the stink. "Probably
lost $3,000 in business," he said.

eric.bailey at latimes.com