Ventura Compost Plant Gets More Time to Relocate

Despite being ordered a year ago to relocate its smelly compost plant, a judge Monday gave Ventura-based California Wood Recycling a brief reprieve from immediate closure.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Frederick Bysshe, saying he sympathized with angry residents living near the plant, ordered the company to return to court May 10 for a hearing to determine a final date by which the plant must move.

“Cal Wood Recycling really does in fact perform a worthy and important function in terms of environmental concerns,” Bysshe said. “The court is also concerned with the fact that the people who live in the vicinity of Cal Wood must be heard from.”

The judge added, “There has to be a point in which the citizens will have had enough.”

According to homeowners who spoke at the hearing, frustration levels have peaked. A group called the South Bank Neighborhood Council has been fighting the plant for years, complaining of odors so bad that residents must close their windows and remain indoors.

“Summer is upon us and that’s the worst time,” Roberta Walton, the neighborhood council chair, told Bysshe. “We don’t want to cancel any more barbecues.”

The plant is on the north side of the Santa Clara River in Ventura and handles Ventura’s leaf trimmings and other yard waste. The affected homeowners live on the river’s south bank in Oxnard, downwind from the plant.

Resident Christina Davis said she was hopeful that at the May hearing, the judge would set a date for the last day the company can make compost. She also praised Bysshe’s plan to fine the company if it fails to meet certain deadlines to be established at the hearing.

Although no final date was discussed in court, county officials said the permitting process required to move the facility could take about 18 months. The company is considering a site in an agricultural area near Camarillo.

“Of course, I would like it to end tomorrow, but that’s the ideal and this is reality,” Davis said outside of court. “I’m optimistic there’s going to be an end to this.”

According to Walter Wall, assistant county counsel, the odor problem is more than a decade old. The housing community was built in 1989, and two years later, California Wood, in business since 1979, started the compost operation.

After years of complaints and attempted remedies, the county sued California Wood. As part of a settlement in May 2003, the company agreed to relocate the compost operation. Monday was the date for the move to occur, Wall said.

Wall argued that a “deadline is a deadline” and that the company had put forth little effort to find a new location and had received two violation notices since August.

“The citizens downwind are still suffering,” Wall said.

The judge granted a request by Wall to order the company to pay more than $20,000 in costs owed to the county. Those fees are due by April 19.

Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn and Oxnard Councilman John Zaragoza spoke in favor of relocating the facility, saying the South Bank neighborhood had contended with the stench far too long and a city-financed effort to record and track complaints from residents had cost more than $120,000.

Alex Gutierrez, an attorney representing the recycling company, said during the hearing that California Wood had complied with the terms of the settlement and was working diligently to find a new location.

“No one contemplated that this would be done in a year,” Gutierrez said. “We’re moving as fast as we can.”