Moorpark Aims to Still Worm, Stench Worries : Compost: Officials will intervene in dispute between neighbors who complain of odor and firm that uses creatures to recycle green waste.

City officials in Moorpark are stepping into a fight between a company that uses worms to convert lawn and garden clippings into fertilizer and the company’s neighbors who complain that the piles of compost the worms are eating give off an unbearable stink.

Although the company, The Worm Concern, is outside Moorpark’s city limits, city officials have decided to help settle the dispute.

The company’s neighbors have complained vociferously to county environmental health officials about the smell, dust and noise coming from the 24-acre facility off Tierra Rejada Road in Simi Valley. Many neighbors want the operation moved.

The complaints, along with a letter from Moorpark’s planning director, led the county to request that The Worm Concern prepare an expensive Environmental Impact Report that the company says could put it out of business.

Now the Moorpark City Council wants to send a new letter to the county, asking county officials to address the neighboring property owners’ complaints without requiring a full environmental impact report of The Worm Concern’s operations.

“We would like to redraft a letter,” said City Councilman Scott Montgomery, who also serves as chairman of the county’s Waste Commission. “Worm Concern’s existence is critical to the cities of Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Moorpark.”

State law requires that cities reduce the amount of trash they send to area landfills by 25% by 1995 and by 50% by 2000. Because green waste, or trash from lawn and garden clippings, makes up as much as 30% of the trash that is sent to landfills, recycling that waste would go a long way toward helping cities meet the state deadlines.

The Worm Concern accepts about 100 tons of green waste a day, much of it coming from a curbside recycling program in Simi Valley. The company plans to bring in as much as 350 tons a day when similar programs in Thousand Oaks and Moorpark begin.

Though Montgomery said he hoped to keep the company in business, he also said that The Worm Concern should fully address the residents’ complaints. He said he will be talking both to property owners and company officials to look for some middle ground. He said he would like them to come up with an agreement before the county requires that a full environmental report be done.

“I’d like to be able to work out some sort of compromise between the two sides,” Montgomery said. “I can tell you it is not an easy problem to solve. It’s very delicate right now. There’s a real chance that this will fail.”

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Montgomery said one compromise would be to conduct a less extensive review of the operation and allow the county to approve a permit if the odor, dust and noise problems are adequately addressed. But area property owners do not seem eager to compromise.

“That’s damn right, we want them to move,” said Glenn Reiser, an Oxnard attorney representing Elvenstar Farm, a riding stable that sits about 1,000 feet from the site.

“There’s a whole plethora of impacts that the farm has had to endure,” Reiser said. “A stink permeates the area 24 hours a day, there’s noise, dust . . . and rats.”

Richard Morhar, president of The Worm Concern, said the company fell behind in processing the waste and allowed about six months of the material to pile up, which contributed to the smell. But a new grinder installed on the facility is already cutting into the load of material and the smell has almost been eliminated, he said.

Morhar said most of the stink that residents have complained about lately is coming from the decaying bodies of four dead cows that were dumped by a rancher near the property. Morhar said the environmental impacts from The Worm Concern are no different from many of the ranches in the area.

“The smell is no worse than their horse manure,” Morhar said. “Look, we want to be good neighbors. We’ve made some mistakes, but I think (Elvenstar) is just looking for anything to throw at us. They don’t want us there. I hope we can work something out though.”

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On Wednesday, the county Environmental Report Review Committee will decide whether Morhar will have to conduct a full environmental impact review. County officials have said that unless Morhar can present new information that will address their concerns, they will push for the full report. If it is required, Morhar said, he will appeal the decision to the Board of Supervisors.

Supervisor Vicky Howard, who visited some of The Worm Concern’s neighbors this week, said the company has a lot of work to do to convince her that a full environmental report should not be required.

“We need to recycle green waste,” Howard said. “But it can’t be at the expense of the health or environment of the people who live near there.”