Land use fees set to rise to meet new state rule on organic waste
Kern County homeowners could soon see a big increase to their land use fee.
To comply with a new state law intended to reduce greenhouse gases from landfills, Kern County Public Works is proposing raising the land use fee by around 71 percent. On parcels with up to four residential units, that equates to an increase from the current fee of $105 to $180 per year. Parcels with five or more residential units could see an increase from $84 to $144.
The county recently sent out flyers to more than 240,000 parcels informing the owners of the proposal. It is only the second fee increase in the last nine years, and the county says it is needed in order to convert multiple waste-processing centers across Kern into facilities that can recycle organic material.
With the passage of Senate Bill 1383 in November of last year, the state approved a plan to reduce organic waste in landfills by 75 percent by the year 2025 when compared to 2014. In addition, the bill seeks to divert edible food that is typically thrown away to human consumption.
But the costs incurred by this change are monumental, hence the need for increased fees.
“I know it is not a great time, with the economy the way that it is and people feeling so uncertain, but I would say that this legislation is not allowing us to postpone it,” said Lynn Brooks, assistant director of Kern County Public Works. “We must move forward, otherwise we are not going to be in compliance… (the state) could shut us down and then it would be extremely expensive
to ship this stuff out of this county.”
To reach the state’s goals, the county plans to build a new, $20 million compost facility at the Shafter-Wasco Landfill. A $10 million investment is also expected to be made at the Bena and Shafter-Wasco self-haul facilities, and a new transfer station could be built at the Tehachapi landfill.
Millions of dollars each year must be spent on separating organic waste from trash and other recyclable material. The county expects to spend an additional $30 million on the technology to process the material.
“SB 1383 has been talked about for the past five years. It’s wildly unpopular with some people and it’s wildly popular with other people,” Brooks said. “We have to do something and honestly this is just the cost. The state has said it was probably going to double or triple fees to actually do this.”
Public Works estimates that 40 percent of material currently disposed of in local landfills is organic waste, which is a term that describes anything that comes from a plant or animal and is biodegradable. The state estimates the figure goes as high as 56 percent throughout California.
According to CalRecycle, 20 percent of all of the state’s methane comes from organic material rotting in landfills. The state agency described methane as a climate super pollutant that is 84 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over 20 years.
“Food, yard and other organic waste rotting in landfills is a top source of climate super pollutants in the state,” Lance Klug, a public information officer with CalRecycle, wrote in an email. “The implementation of SB 1383 is one of the fastest and easiest ways Californians can fight climate change, feed Californians in need, conserve our precious water used to grow food and move the state towards a future with less pollution and more green jobs.”
Kern County has scheduled a public hearing for 2 p.m. Jan. 4 at the Kern County Administrative Center located at 1115 Truxtun Ave. to receive input on the land use fee increase.
The law is already being felt throughout industries that handle garbage. A group of locally owned garbage haulers recently agreed to sell their businesses to Fontana-based company Burrtec, which they believe is better equipped to handle the changes required by SB 1383.
“It’s over 100 pages of regulations that jurisdictions and haulers and facilities have to comply with, and it’s changing everything about how solid waste is collected,” said Jacob Panero, CEO of Varner Bros. Inc., one of the companies involved in the sale. “It’s going to require that a vast majority of the food waste that has previously been disposed of, and organic waste, gets recycled.”