Firm Seeks Ventura Site for Recycling Plant : Environment: Company abandons proposal to build large facility in Camarillo. The project would serve western Ventura County.

The recycling company whose proposal to build a huge waste-transfer plant in Camarillo sparked heated neighborhood opposition has changed its plans and is now considering a site in Ventura.

Gold Coast Recycling Inc. has canceled its option to buy a Camarillo warehouse, which it wanted to convert into a recycling plant that would handle 1,800 tons of trash daily from western Ventura County, Gold Coast spokeswoman Nan Drake said.

Instead, the company is considering building a new recycling center about half a mile from its existing plant on Colt Street in the city of Ventura, Drake said.

Gold Coast has been competing with the city of Oxnard to build a large recycling plant that would allow the seven west county cities to meet state requirements to recycle 25% of their garbage by 1995.

The plant reportedly would bring hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue to the city where it is built.

Camarillo City Manager J. William Little estimated the Gold Coast plant would have added $700,000 to city coffers each year, while Oxnard City Manager Vern Hazen said a plant proposed for his city could generate up to $2 million a year.

“From a revenue standpoint, it would have been nice to have,” Little said.

Even though it could mean more revenue for Ventura, at least one councilman said he is less concerned about the money the project would bring to the city than he is about how well it would meet the county’s recycling goals.

“I don’t want to get into the same problem that Oxnard and Camarillo have been in, this big fight over who’s going to get it,” Councilman Gary Tuttle said. “It’s not a revenue-producing issue. It’s a recycling issue. As long as it’s the best deal for the region and the best deal for the ratepayer, I’ll support it.”

Although the Camarillo proposal is dead, Oxnard hasn’t won the competition to build a recycling plant serving western Ventura County, Little said.

A consultant hired by the Ventura County Waste Commission to decide between the Gold Coast and Oxnard proposals concluded that both projects faced big problems.

In a report released this week, the Fremont-based consulting firm of Hilton Farnkopf & Hobson said that BLT Enterprises, the Los Angeles-based company that would operate Oxnard’s plant, does not appear to have enough money to build and run the facility.

Oxnard officials have agreed to issue $25 million in bonds to finance construction of the plant. Even if the waste commission does not approve the Oxnard recycling center for all west county cities, Hazen said the city plans to build a plant to handle its own trash.

Despite concerns about financing the Oxnard plant, the commission’s consultant stopped short of recommending Gold Coast’s proposal because of that company’s problems in finding a location.

Although the waste commission will consider the consultant’s report on July 15, Little said he thinks the panel will delay any decision on the Oxnard project or on any proposed Gold Coast plant in Ventura.

The west county cities have been racing to build a plant that would meet state requirements to recycle 25% of all garbage by 1995.

But Ventura County and its cities now have more time than officials previously thought for boosting the amount of trash they recycle.

Under the state budget signed by the governor this week, the state will still require counties and cities to recycle at least one-quarter of their garbage by 1995, but it will not begin imposing financial penalties until 1997.

In 1997, the state will charge $10,000 per day to every city and county that fails to meet the recycling targets.

Drake said Gold Coast won’t move forward with plans to build in Ventura until the commission or at least some of the west county cities represented on the waste panel endorse the company’s proposal.

Gold Coast decided against the Camarillo site partly because of opposition from residents of Rancho Calleguas Gardens, a tiny neighborhood across the Ventura Freeway from the Mission Oaks Boulevard warehouse, she said.

Rancho Calleguas residents argued that heavy truck traffic to and from the proposed plant would worsen the already dangerous traffic congestion in the area.

Although Gold Coast officials said they could widen roads and make other improvements to ease traffic problems, they were unsure whether the Camarillo City Council would have approved their project.

“I don’t know if they had the will to oppose one neighborhood,” Drake said.

Rancho Calleguas residents meanwhile said they are thrilled by the company’s decision not to convert the warehouse into a recycling plant.

Martin Etchechoury, 71, said he and his neighbors collected about 4,000 signatures from residents throughout Camarillo who opposed the Gold Coast proposal. Now that they know the plant won’t be built, Etchechoury and his neighbors are planning a block party.

The warehouse “was not a place for a trash recycling site,” he said. “It was totally out of place.”

Added area resident Robert Pitts, 37: “We’re pretty happy about it. We’re not going to have 710 trucks every five hours coming through our neighborhood.”

In addition to the opposition from residents, Gold Coast also decided against purchasing the Camarillo warehouse because the building turned out to be too large.

At first, Gold Coast had proposed a plant that could handle up to 1,800 tons of waste each day, recycling at least 25% and sending the rest to landfills.

But now Ventura County Waste Commission officials believe the west county will only need a plant capable of taking in about 1,000 tons of garbage a day, Drake said.

At its Colt Street plant, Gold Coast currently recycles 220 tons of garbage daily and has a capacity for up to 440 tons each day, she said.

Drake would not disclose the site in Ventura that Gold Coast may purchase, saying that company officials want to avoid generating the kind of opposition they contended with in Camarillo.