Sludge Facility Lawsuit Is Settled

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a legal settlement with the nation’s largest sludge processor, cutting two years off the time it will be allowed to operate a huge open-air facility along Interstate 15 in Corona.

The vote was 4 to 1 in favor of the settlement, with Supervisor Bob Buster the lone opponent. Synagro’s 500-ton-a day facility is in his district, and he has received regular complaints from residents downwind of the site.

He said he voted against the settlement agreement because he felt it was unfair to nearby homeowners.

“The period of time is too long,” he said. “It’s gotten smellier and smellier.”

Supervisor John Tavaglione, who voted for the settlement, said the lawsuit and appeals could go on for several years and cost millions of dollars, with no guarantee of success.

“Personally, I think that it’s far better to reach a settlement and close it out,” he said. “We would have been held out in court for at least five years.”

Synagro sued the county in 1999, seeking to stay at the lucrative site until 2010, after county environmental officials notified them that they had violated the terms of a county permit so often that they would have to leave several years early.

The facility, where partially treated sewage is turned into gardening compost, will close two years early. But the company is still looking for another site in the region, an attorney said.

He and other company officials noted that Riverside County and other regional sewage treatment facilities still need to find a way to dispose of biosolids, also known as sludge.

“How’s this fast-growing county going to manage its biosolids? It’s not a problem that’s going to go away,” said attorney David Bristow of Reid & Hellyer in Riverside.

“You can’t put it in a dump, you can’t dump it in the ocean like everybody used to, but you can compost.... Synagro is committed to working with the county to try and find a location where that’s possible.”

The Texas-based company also agreed to pay a flat $225,000 fee annually to the county, either to keep a round-the-clock odor monitoring program in place or for any other purpose.

They also will pay a maximum of $25,000 annually for their first five permit violations, rather than reduce daily intake of partially treated sewage, and will start paying 50 cents to $1.50 per wet ton trucked to the site.