Speech by Mayor Barrett regarding potential Scotts Valley Dump sites, given at the Mello Center in Watsonville.
Good evening. I'm Cliff Barrett, Mayor of Scotts Valley. It is my understanding that the basis for screening out siting areas at this initial level of review is: 1) Access, 2) Proximity or impact potential to public water supply resources, 3) Parcel configuration and topography.
Tonight your staff has recommended that several parcels be eliminated due to the first two criteria; access and impact to public water supply recources. Sites 19 and 23 are recommended to be eliminated from further consideration because of the impact to the public water supply and groundwater resources, and we concur with that recommendation.
At this time we encourage you to also remove site 22 as it also does not meet the initial criteria as established. On page G-121 of the staff report, the traffic evaluation shows no public facilities along the proposed route - this is incorrect.
- Fronting Granite Creek Road is Baymonte School with
440 K-8 students and a pre-school with 64 students.
- The Scotts Valley Montesorri School serves 88
students and is 1/10th mile off of Granite Creek Rd.
- Due to the high number of traffic generation, site 22
will require a multi-million dollar upgrade to the
Hwy 17 interchange.
A landfill in this area could potentially impact headwater areas or tributaries to several area streams that are part of the Barnciforte water shed. In particular, both Granite Creek and Branciforte Creek would be vulnerable to water quality degradation as a result of construction of a landfill in this location. The surrounding area is also served almost exclusively by relatively shallow private wells, so the potential for causing localized groundwater impacts should be considered. The next speaker, Bill
O'Brien of the Scotts Valley Water District, will speak to
that issue in detail.
County staff is recommending that landfill sites with both serious constructability and environmental and permitting issues be eliminated. This includes sites 14a and 21.
- Site 14a, Trout Gulch Road, requires road widening and the acquisition of new road right-of-way due to the existing steep hillsides and roadway cuts. Retaining walls will be required to reduce the number of trees to be removed. Due to the close proximity of Trout Gulch Creek, the potential for the presence of various endangered species is high. Extensive mitigation measures will likely be imposed. The landfill travel route passes through the town of Aptos. Public facilities identified as one school and one park. Trout Gulch Road/Soquel Drive intersection will need improvement to handle landfill truck volumes.
- Site 21, access up Branciforte Creek requires the widening of Branciforte Drive. Road widening will require a new county road right-of-way due to the steepness of the hillsides and the near vertical road cut slopes. Due to the closeness of Happy Valley Creek, many mitigations will be imposed. The landfill travel route will go through the City of Santa Cruz and the proposed travel route has one school and one park. All intersections on Ocean, Water, and Market streets would have to be examined for traffic impacts.
- Site 22 has the same issues as sites 14a and 21, and should be eliminated for the same reasons. Site 22 traverses Granite Creek and the access requires severe difficulties and mitigations identical to sites 14a and 21. Like those sites, the travel route is through the City of Scotts Valley, passing by not one school, but three different schools.
In summary, we support the staff recommendation to eliminate sites 19 and 23.
- We support applying the same access criteria that
eliminates sites 14a and 21 to site 22.
- We support the elimination of site 22 due to the
travel route going through high residential neigh-
borhoods and by three different school sites.
In conclusion, it might be that there is no safe place in Santa Cruz County to put a landfill site. After all, we are the second smallest county, land-wise, in the State and we are the second most impacted county with endangered species. It just might be that Santa Cruz County is no place for a dump.
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