With an estimated 10 years left in the lifespan of the Tajiguas Landfill on the Gaviota Coast — and with state waste and environmental standards becoming ever stricter — the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors gave a unanimous thumbs up Tuesday to overhauling the landfill’s resource-recovery capabilities.
The Tajiguas Resource Recovery Project will involve the construction and operation of “state of the art” resource recovery facilities that would divert more recyclables and organic waste from the landfill, extending its life by a decade, according to county staff.
The proposed Material Recovery Facility would sort municipal solid waste coming into a 56,500- to 66,500-square-foot facility into three categories: recyclables that would be recovered and processed for sale; organics that would be recovered and processed in the proposed Anaerobic Digestion Facility; and “residue” — waste that cannot be diverted from the landfill.
The Anaerobic Digestion Facility would be roughly 63,600 square feet, and would turn organic waste into either “bio-gas,” which would both drive on-site power generators for Tajiguas’ use as well as be sent to the power grid, or “digestate,” compost or soil amendments that can be sold for agricultural or landscaping use.
The Material Recovery Facility has a design capacity of up to 250,000 tons of waste per year, which would yield up to 90,000 tons per year of recycled material that ultimately would be sold for reuse.
The Anaerobic Digestion Facility has a design capacity of up to 73,600 tons of organic waste per year. Under the project, another 100,000 tons per year of “residue” would still be sent into the landfill.
A composting area and supporting facilities and infrastructure are also to be added to the site.
All those new facilities, county staff found, would increase the region’s diversion rate — how much waste is kept out of the landfill — from 73 percent to 85 percent.
The decrease in annual greenhouse gas emissions would be the rough equivalent of 13,270 vehicles taken off the road.
The project would also help the county, Santa Barbara, and the cities of Goleta, Buellton and Solvang meet greenhouse-gas-reduction standards and waste standards, county staff said.
As part of its vote, the board approved a waste services agreement with MSB Investors LLC to design, build and operate the facilities.
MSB Investors will then contract out to other companies for the various construction and operational jobs necessary to make the project happen, said Leslie Wells, the collections and materials manager for the county Public Works Department’s Resource Recovery and Waste Management division.
The 12-year agreement covers two years for construction and 10 years of operation, Wells said. A new agreement would have to be hammered out for the final 10 years of the landfill’s now-extended lifespan.
“I think this project is probably the most complex and sophisticated financing I’ve seen to date,” said county Treasurer Harry Hagen, who led the Debt Advisory Committee’s examination of funding methods. “But it also has probably got the highest level of due diligence and attention to detail that I’ve seen with any project that has come forward.”
The board approved the committee’s recommendation of publicly financing the project through solid waste recovery certificates of participation, a form of financing that a government entity can use that allows others to buy a share of the lease revenue of an agreement made by the government entity.
The cost of constructing the project comes out to $110.5 million, Wells said. The first year’s operations amount to $13 million, while $12 million in revenues is expected from the sale of recyclables, compost and energy.
All five supervisors praised the process and the county staff who worked on it for their transparency and outreach efforts despite the considerable complexity of the project.
“I’m excited about moving forward, and I think we’ve got a gold-standard team both inside the county and outside the county,” said Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino.
“I think that this is just such a well-considered project,” Fourth District Supervisor Peter Adam said.
“There aren’t a lot of holes in this,” he added. “This is a very well-thought-out project.”
Despite the county’s approval, the project has faced opposition from segments of the public on environmental and financial grounds.
The Gaviota Coast Conservancy and the Surfrider Foundation have expressed concern that, with or without the project, the landfill represents further industrialization of the Gaviota Coast.
The Conservancy also questioned the prudence of publicly financing such an expensive project.
Other groups such as the Community Environmental Council have expressed concerns over the quality of the compost that would come out of the facilities, as well as the reliability of the anaerobic digestion technology.
Before the project can begin, however, the county must still obtain financing, acquire the relevant permits, negotiate the proposed “materials delivery agreements” and relocate Tajiguas operations facilities in order to accommodate the construction.
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.