Environmental groups sue SF over landfill plans

Environmental groups have sued San Francisco over that city's plans to send train loads of its trash to rural Yuba County.

In separate filing in San Francisco Superior Court on Thursday, Yuba Group Against Garbage and Sustainability, Parks, Recycling and Wildlife Legal Defense Fund alleged that San Francisco officials violated state law by failing to conduct an environmental impact report on efforts to transport up to 5 million tons of trash to a landfill in the city of Wheatland.

The city also unfairly awarded the contract for the job to San Francisco-based trash hauler Recology Inc., which operates the Wheatland landfill, the lawsuits said.

"We do not want 5 million tons of San Francisco's waste in Yuba County," said Brigit Barnes, an attorney for the Yuba Group.

A spokeswoman for San Francisco's Department of the Environment, which awarded the Recology contract, could not be reached.

In July, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors approved a 10-year, $112 million contract to send 5 million tons of the city's trash to Recology's Ostrom Road Landfill in Wheatland.

The Yuba County landfill, which is 130 miles from San Francisco, charges much lower fees than the Alamont Landfill in Alameda County, where most of San Francisco's garbage now goes.

The Recology contract, which is scheduled to begin in 2015, has been heavily opposed by Yuba County residents and environmentalists.

In their suit, the Yuba Group and SPRAWLDEF said neither the city nor Recology has identified the routes that they plan to use to ship the garbage.

They argue that an expanded landfill poses environmental risks to nearby waterways that feed into the Sacramento River and Yuba River.

"They utterly disregarded the obvious impacts of hauling garbage 130 miles away," said Kelly Smith, attorney for SPRAWLDEF.

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