Recycling Plant Suit Raises Questions

Upon reading of the lawsuit filed by the Channel Islands Beach Community Services District against the Ventura Regional Sanitation District over its recycling facility’s environmental impact report, I was moved to write. It is not common in Ventura County for one public-service organization to sue another. Since this action represents a significant departure from the normal way of resolving issues in the county, it raises some questions.

What really motivated the Channel Islands district board and its general manager to sue the sanitation district over the adequacy of the first-stage environmental report for the proposed recycling facility?

I do not think it is the cost of developing or operating the facility because the Channel Islands district is going to incur far greater costs by entering lawsuits. It can’t be the facility’s design because it has not been designed yet. It can’t be direct impacts on the Channel Islands district because the facility would be on the east side of Oxnard, halfway to Camarillo.

So what reasons might have motivated the general manager to recommend that the Channel Islands district expend its own funds, time and energy to enter into a lawsuit that can only drive up the district’s costs and produce no direct benefit? It is noted that Supervisor John K. Flynn has been a “longtime critic of regional sanitation’s operations and management . . .” and that the Channel Islands general manager is a former member of Flynn’s staff.

I feel we should be applauding the Ventura sanitation district for its work toward setting up a recycling center--encouraging them, not suing them.

JANIS McCORMICK, El Rio