City Offers to Forgo Trash Plant if 2nd Site Is Better : Oxnard: Consent could end competition with a recycling facility that has been proposed for Camarillo.

Oxnard officials agreed Thursday to give up development of the city’s recycling plant only if it can be proven that another facility would handle western Ventura County’s trash more efficiently.

It also agreed to turn over control of its plant to the county if a new countywide Waste Management Authority, now merely in the planning stages, chooses Oxnard as the site for a plant to serve the western Ventura County wasteshed.

Oxnard’s consent could end competition between materials recycling facilities proposed for Oxnard and Camarillo--a situation that trash officials countywide have come to call “dueling MRFs.”

Oxnard Councilman Andres Herrera told fellow members of the county Waste Commission that Oxnard will stop work on its own recycling plant and join other cities in development of another plant if a study proves that the second site would be cheaper.

However, unless that happens, Oxnard will continue working with BLT Enterprises of Los Angeles to develop its plant, Herrera said. Oxnard would welcome other cities to bring their trash there when it is built, Herrera told the commission, a policy-making board made up of representatives of the 10 cities and the county.

“We obviously have to make this thing work, and we’re inviting everyone to participate in it,” Herrera said after the commission meeting. “If it’s conclusively proven that (the Camarillo proposal) is better, then we’ll stop.”

That determination should be made some time in the next 60 days, he said.

The county’s city managers have tentatively chosen the Fremont-based municipal consulting firm of Hilton, Farnkopf and Hobson to study the Oxnard proposal and the Camarillo proposal by Gold Coast Recycling, which now runs a recycling plant in Ventura.

The consulting firm would recommend which plan is superior in terms of each one’s development and operating plans and the terms and conditions placed on each by the city where it would be located.

Herrera said that unless Oxnard is told otherwise, it must plow forward with building its plant in order to meet state recycling deadlines. All California cities and counties must reduce their landfill use through recycling and source reduction by 25% by 1995, and Oxnard only recycles about 6% of its trash now.

During the commission meeting, commission member Alex Fiore of Thousand Oaks chastised the city of Camarillo for not having officially approved in concept of Gold Coast Recycling’s plant proposal.

Fiore said it is wasteful to spend county money on a study of a facility that has not been approved by its host city.

“It seems to me the city of Oxnard has done it correctly,” Fiore told fellow member Charles K. Gose, a member of the Camarillo City Council.

“They put the horse before the cart,” Fiore said. “They selected a site, they took it to their council, the council approved a MRF for that site and now they’re proceeding with development of that MRF.”

Gose responded that Camarillo has commissioned an environmental impact report of the Gold Coast project and is waiting for the results before deciding whether to approve the proposal.

Although Fiore recommended that the commission send a letter asking the Camarillo City Council to take such a vote at its next meeting, the idea failed on a 4-4 vote.