Will a lack of electrical infrastructure give cannabis growers an out from installing carbon scrubbers in the Carpinteria Valley?

A 17-page Santa Barbara County staff report suggests that installing carbon scrubbers could be “cost-prohibitive” because of electrical upgrades needed.

Oxidizers, scrubbers and filters require a 480-volt power supply, and many grow sites in the Carpinteria area only have a 120/240-volt power supply.

The growers, according to the county, would need to work with Southern California Edison to install additional, new or upgraded power transformers at a cost of about $50,000, in addition to on-site infrastructure upgrades at an unknown cost.

Some growers lack the physical geographical capability to even install the upgrades, the staff report states.

“These upgrades may be financially and physically prohibitive for an operator to facilitate the use of carbon scrubbers at their sites,” states the lengthy staff report, which has six attachments.

The Board of Supervisors will meet on Tuesday in Santa Maria to tackle the cannabis odor problem, which has infuriated Carpinteria Valley residents, damaged the credibility of county executive leadership, and derailed a political career.

The cannabis odor in the Carpinteria Valley has attracted international attention to Santa Barbara County. The County approved a controversial cannabis cultivation ordinance in 2018, and since, people regularly have complained about significant odor in the Carpinteria Valley. More than 3,000 complaints about the odor have filed since the ordinance passed.

“If a business causes a nuisance, the responsibility to fix it is on them — not the taxpayers, not the neighbors,” Second District Supervisor Laura Capps said. “Why shouldn’t the cannabis industry live up to this standard?”

As of now, 10 growers in the Carpinteria Valley have installed carbon filtration, covering 28 acres of cannabis greenhouses. That leaves a total 116 acres under cultivation without scrubbers.

County data shows that complaints have decreased since 2021, but questions remain about whether there’s less odor or if people feel hopeless about complaining.

Planners say that stronger odor is detected when people are driving than when on foot; but “in multiple scenarios, staff has pulled over to take an odor measurement,” and the reading is “less consistent than expected once the vehicle is stopped.”

The county staff report also states that meteorological effects like “wind direction, pressure systems, or climate” could affect odor and that “people experience odor differently, and one person may experience odor while another does not, which may impact whether a person decides to file a cannabis odor complaint.”

Capps has long been a critic of the ordinance. She said neighbors have been suffering from foul odor for six years.

“The ordinance calls for the best available technology to mitigate odor, and right now it is clear by the study and experience that it is carbon scrubbers,” Capps said. “The delay tactics are flimsy and tiresome. It shouldn’t be such a struggle to do the right thing.”

First District Santa Barbara County Supervisor Das Williams, who represents the Carpinteria Valley, has faced a buzzsaw of criticism over the cannabis ordinance. He accepted more than $62,000 in campaign contributions while the county was originally drafting the ordinance.

He was still accepting campaign contributions from the cannabis industry in his recent bid for a third term earlier this year, but lost the election to Roy Lee, a Carpinteria councilman who openly called for mandatory cannabis scrubbers.

Williams has previously opposed carbon scrubbers but seemed to alter his perspective in a statement to Noozhawk on Saturday.

“We have seen steady progress on odor control, but it has been too slow to heal some of the conflicts in the community,” Williams said. “Now that the market has shown a small improvement, this is the time for cannabis farmers to invest in their reputation with our neighbors and invest in improved odor control.”