The Aromas-San Juan School Board is making it clear to Santa
Cruz County they don’t want a dump near their classrooms.
The Aromas-San Juan School Board is making it clear to Santa Cruz County they don’t want a dump near their classrooms.
Though any dump is years away, the board, in a preemptive strike, passed a resolution Wednesday night opposing locating a dump near their school, and Superintendent Jackie Munoz said she’ll hand deliver the paperwork to the county. Santa Cruz County has a list of 23 locations they’re considering for a new landfill, and one of them is only half a mile from Aromas School.
“From a district standpoint, I’m very concerned about this,” Munoz said. “I’m worried about the students being exposed to pollution and the impact it will have on the efforts made by the school.”
Not only would a landfill bring more traffic, odor and pollution, Munoz said, for the past 13 years the school has worked at a science experiment learning site right on the river, which could become polluted.
“The city of Aromas has worked very hard to conserve and protect the environment and this landfill would have a huge impact on its community,” Munoz said.
The site, located on the north side of state Route 129 and Rogge Road, lays on Santa Cruz County’s border with Monterey and San Benito counties. Because most Aromas residents live in Monterey and San Benito counties, they’re concerned their voices won’t be heard.
“This is an enormous concern for us all,” said Patty Brown, spokeswoman for the Aromas landfill opposition committee. “It would change the entire climate of our town. Instead of being this beautiful country oasis, we would become just a little town next to a landfill.”
Patrick Mathews, Santa Cruz County solid waste, recycling and sewage manager, said the sites are being looked at for technical considerations, and it is too soon to bring social and political considerations into play. The county has roughly 15 years to finalize a site before the Buena Vista Landfill will reach capacity.
“Information and concerns brought forth by the community will be taken into consideration at some point later in the game, but right now we’re still determining which sites meet the technical criteria needed to hold a landfill,” he said.
At least two other potential landfill sites are located in close proximity to schools, Mathews said.
“Having to build another landfill is an evil necessity,” he said. “But it’s something that has to be done. I’ve had people call me and say ‘I’ve lived in this house for this many years and you can’t put a landfill here,’ but the fact is wherever we put it there is going to be an impact on someone.”
During the next few years, the task force will cut the list of possibilities down to 10. All of those potential area will still have to go through an Environmental Impact Report.
The task force, which meets every two months will also look into other possibilities to deal with trash, such as transporting it or coming up with other ways of managing it, Mathews said. The next scheduled meeting is June 10.
