South Valley Disposal seeks new transfer station on Pacheco
Pass, across from Gilroy Foods
Gilroy – South Valley Waste Disposal & Recycling has decided to press forward with plans for a new transfer station on Pacheco Pass, where it currently houses its offices and stores trucks. The plans have yet to reach Gilroy planners for initial review, but council members already say the idea stinks.
In the next five years, the provider of garbage service for Gilroy, Morgan Hill and San Martin hopes to build a $5 million facility at its Pacheco Pass headquarters. Its fleet of 40 garbage trucks would unload waste at the site, where it would then be rerouted on 18-wheelers to regional landfills and recycling plants. The 19-acre site at 1351 Pacheco Pass faces Gilroy Foods, a fruit and vegetable drying and processing plant.
“They’re going to have a very difficult time trying to get the community to embrace putting a transfer station across from one of the signature smells that has put Gilroy on the map,” Councilman Craig Gartman said. “There’s a beautiful aroma of onions and garlic coming out of Gilroy Foods. I think it might be rather challenging to try to blend those smells.”
South Valley Disposal Manager Phil Couchee said the company hopes to ease that concern by completely enclosing its facility and placing it at the rear of the site. Combined with trees and landscaping, he predicted that passing motorists would not notice the 34-foot high building.
In anticipation of such concerns, Couchee took Gilroy council members several years ago on a trip to a San Francisco transfer station, owned by its parent company Norcal Waste.
The trip did not make a convert of Mayor Al Pinheiro, who opposes the idea of unloading garbage along Gilroy’s eastern gateway. The area lies just east of the city’s still-expanding shopping hub, with 250,000 square feet of new stores and restaurants expected to rise in the next two years on the south side of Pacheco Pass. In addition to traffic concerns, Pinheiro worried about the prospect of pick-up trucks loaded with tree branches and other waste lining up along Pacheco Pass. Such scenes are common in the summer at South Valley Disposal’s current waste facility in San Martin, off Llagas Road, according to Pinheiro.
“I think it’s the wrong location,” he said of the Pacheco Pass site. “I gave them all the benefit of the doubt, but it’s not the proper place for it. That is our entry point into Gilroy.”
Couchee said the company would have to identify alternate sites as part of its environmental review process, but the company still hopes to win support for the current proposal.
“We’re aware of the concerns that are being raised and we feel that we’ll be able to address these concerns to the satisfaction of the city and community,” he said. “We’re going to go forward and if it doesn’t pan out, we’ll have to figure out something else.”
South Valley has provided garbage service to the area for more than 50 years. It currently processes 400 tons of waste each day at its San Martin facility. The new station would allow the company to process a larger amount of waste and provide it with the ability to generate income by sorting and selling recyclables.
Why you should care
– South Valley Disposal & Recycling hopes to relocate its transfer station in San Martin, where garbage trucks currently unload waste each day for transfer to land fills and recycling plants, to its headquarters on Pacheco Pass.
– 40 garbage trucks serve Gilroy, Morgan Hill and San Martin
A new facility would:
– cost $5 million
– measure 75,000 square feet
– be completely enclosed
– sort recyclables
