Firm to Seek County’s Approval for Recycling Facility

The owners of an Oxnard-based recycling company will ask the County Board of Supervisors today for permission to convert a closed chicken ranch north of Moorpark into a recycling center.

During a special meeting at the Ventura County Government Center, M-Maintenance & Clean-Up will ask the board for a five-year permit to recycle scrap construction materials on the site at Shekell Road and the Moorpark Freeway.

“We’re optimistic,” Joseph Reisdorf said of the chances the request will be granted. Reisdorf is a partner at the Malibu-based environmental consulting firm Aurora Associates, which represents M-Maintenance.

“Our approach will be to look at the facts and evidence which support the approval of the project,” he said.

The request is actually an appeal of the Planning Commission’s rejection of the proposal over fears of traffic, noise and dust on surrounding roads. County planners recommend the supervisors uphold the commission’s decision.

The commission and county planners determined that building a recycling center would not be consistent with the area’s agricultural zoning.

“The Board of Supervisors has the final authority, but we decided [the recycling center] was not an agricultural use,” said Michael Wesner, the commission chairman. “It’s not that we’re against what the management is proposing. It’s rather, why put it in the middle of Moorpark’s agricultural land?”

M-Maintenance has set its sights on a 14.5-acre slice of the 205-acre former Egg City, which was closed last year after a decade of complaints from neighbors. The Oxnard company wants to use the site to recycle scrap cardboard, bricks, concrete, lumber, metal strapping and other building materials.

Residents and farmers who live and work near Egg City vehemently oppose the recycling project. They jammed the Planning Commission’s four-hour hearing May 29, arguing that the recycling center’s trucks would clog already dangerous roads as well as spread dust that could harm nearby lemon and avocado orchards.

Neighbors also fear that allowing a recycling center would bring more industrial development to the unincorporated, rural area of the county set aside for farmland and open space.

“[The Board of Supervisors] should uphold what their Planning Commission stated,” said Patty Waters, who has spearheaded the movement against the project.

Aside from a serious traffic problem, the dust could have far-reaching consequences, she said.

“There will be dust, and with dust there are mites and with mites [the farmers] have to spray, and people don’t like pesticides,” Waters said.

County planners initially recommended that the Planning Commission approve a permit for the project on condition that the company institute 46 requirements designed to lessen traffic and other related impacts.

After months of study, they concluded that noise would not be a problem and that dust could be controlled, since the recycling center was planned for a remote corner of the site.

County and M-Maintenance officials also agreed to restrict the number and types of trucks and limit which roads would be used to bring recyclable materials into the center.

But by a 3-2 vote, the commission voted to scrap the recycling center plan outright.

“We were upset because we didn’t feel the Planning Commission really looked at the evidence and the records,” Reisdorf said. “There are facts and then people’s fears. The law supports basing environmental decisions on facts, not unsubstantiated concerns.”

Company officials point out that the recycling project would be built more than half a mile away from any farming or residential property.

The company appealed the commission’s denial on grounds that studies of impacts to air, water, noise and dust produced no evidence of negative environmental effects.

Furthermore, company officials contend that commissioners based their decision on the potential for future expansion of the recycling center rather than focusing on the project at hand.