Don't trash Cortina Ridge

The Sierra Club is working to protect hundreds of acres of pristine landscape in southwestern Colusa County - rugged canyons, open space, habitat and agricultural land - from tons of garbage hauled from your communities. Cortina Ridge, about 10 miles southwest of Williams in the eastern Coastal Range foothills above the Sacramento Valley, is a beautiful place of oak woodlands, chaparral, and deep wooded valleys; a source of fresh water; and a place for deer, black bear, mountain lion, and the occasional tule elk.

The Cortina Band of Winton Indians has agreed to lease 443 acres of its lands on the Cortina Ridge to Cortina Waste Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of Earthworks Industries of Vancouver, Canada, for a landfill. It would have the capacity to accept up to 1,500 tons of solid waste per day, a total of 12 - 15 million tons through its approximately 50-year lifetime. Waste for this facility would not come from Colusa County, but would be hauled in from other jurisdictions including Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Lake, and Marin Counties. Since the landfill would be sited on sovereign territory, it would be exempt from all local and state laws and regulations that would normally provide environmental review and safety oversight on projects of this type.

In 1998, Colusa County voters passed a ballot measure requiring 2/3 approval for any garbage landfills. Earthworks is using the Cortina Band's sovereign status to circumvent this law as well.

During the public process for this landfill proposal, Cortina Band members living on the tribe's Ranchería publicly opposed the project. They received letters from tribal leaders who do not live on the Ranchería instructing them to stop their opposition and threatening them with expulsion from the Ranchería if they did not.

The project would fill four canyons on the Cortina Ridge with garbage, ultimately rendering the tribal lands unlivable. The proposed dump sites are in steep, rugged canyons whose watersheds feed into several creeks and ultimately the Sacramento River at Knights Landing. Even the best landfills leak, but the Cortina developers propose no plan or funding for long-term maintenance, monitoring, and response in case of a spill, or for remediation for damage from leaks or releases from the landfill after closure. When the landfill does erode and leak, taxpayers will be left with Superfund site clean-up costs and the polluted landscape.

Colusa County sued in federal court contesting the Environmental Impact Statement, but had to drop the suit due to lack of funds.

Federal oversight

Though the project is exempt from local and state oversight, it is subject to federal regulations governing landfills and will require permitting from federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The landfill developers have said that they will request a waiver from EPA regulations prohibiting siting of a landfill within 200 feet of a fault and from standards for landfill liners. EPA has not yet received the formal requests for waivers, and will require a thorough review and full public process with a comment period for public input.

WhatYouCanDo

Public input will be very important to the EPA in considering permits and waivers for this landfill. To help stop this project, send a short note addressed to the EPA care of Pam Nieberg, chair of the Sierra Club's Yolano Group, to:

3010 Loyola Drive
Davis, CA 95618
pnieberg -at- dcn.davis.ca.us

Urge the EPA to reject the Cortina landfill and to deny any waivers of its environmental requirements.

For more information, visit www.savesacvalleywater.com or email Pam Nieberg at pnieberg -at- dcn.davis.ca.us

Pam Nieberg