COUNTYWIDE : Lawsuit Backers Hail Trash Plant Ruling

Victors in a lawsuit against the Ventura Regional Sanitation District said Monday that a judge’s decision last week to delay construction of a trash recycling plant could eventually save taxpayers $30 million.

Officials from the Channel Islands Beach Community Services District said the sanitation district’s planned $30-million plant is unnecessary, because one private recycling company is doing the job efficiently and a second private plant is planned.

Together, the plants could meet the county’s recycling needs into the next century, they said.

Meanwhile, the sanitation district formally asked Superior Court Judge Richard D. Aldrich to reconsider his decision, officials said.

Aldrich blocked the sanitation district’s purchase of an Oxnard parcel last Thursday, delaying construction of the recycling plant for three to six months.

The judge ordered the sanitation district to complete a full environmental study of the plant--and of alternatives to it--before buying 30 acres in an east Oxnard industrial park.

Channel Islands district officials, who represent 1,800 homeowners near Channel Islands Harbor, praised the judge’s ruling and said the sanitation district should rethink its role in the west county business.

“The expenditure of significant public funds for a publicly owned and operated recycling station is duplicative and wasteful,” said Gerard W. Kapuscik, general manager of the Channel Islands district.

He said the district has increased its profits from recyclable material by 84% since starting to take its trash to Gold Coast Recycling Center in Ventura, instead of to the sanitation district.

Patrick W. Forrest, vice president of the Channel Islands board of directors, characterized the sanitation district as a “bloated bureaucracy that doesn’t need to exist.”

The 148-employee sanitation district has an annual budget of about $30 million.

It serves eight of the county’s 10 cities and several special districts, including Channel Islands.

It runs the Bailard and Toland Road landfills and runs a recycling operation at Bailard.

A sanitation district official said district directors think that it is in customers’ interest to build a publicly owned recycling station.

A public facility will compete with private recyclers, such as Gold Coast, and keep prices down, said David R. Burkhart, the sanitation district’s assistant general manager.

The district’s proposed recycling center might be run by a private company, Burkhart said.

But by owning the facility, the district will be able to fire the contractor if it is not satisfied with service.