A yellow bulldozer stained by trash bounced between mounds of
garbage and a rumbling big-rig, gradually filling with 20 tons of
rubbish destined for the Crazy Horse Landfill in Salinas.
Gilroy – A yellow bulldozer stained by trash bounced between mounds of garbage and a rumbling big-rig, gradually filling with 20 tons of rubbish destined for the Crazy Horse Landfill in Salinas.
The continual loading process hums along each day at the South Valley Disposal & Recycling transfer facility in San Martin, and it’s bound for Gilroy.
But SVDR General Manager Phil Couchee said the company’s current open-air facility is antiquated, and the newer, cleaner, environmentally friendlier facility slated for south Gilroy will be entirely enclosed and almost unnoticeable.
“You won’t know from the outside what’s going on inside,” Couchee said as the bulldozer pivoted to scoop up more trash on the “tipping floor,” so-named because private citizens and garbage collection trucks alike “tip” their garbage onto the concrete floor.
Every day collection trucks and citizens drop off 300 to 400 tons of garbage and recyclable and compostable materials at the site to be transferred to various sites, Couchee said. About 10 to 15 cars line up each morning for the service as SVDR collection trucks stream in.
But the Santa Clara Planning Commission has given the company until February 2010 to relocate, so SVDR was thinking about building its new facility where it already parks its 45 red-and-white collection trucks on Pacheco Pass Highway across from Gilroy Foods at the eastern entrance of town.
At least until a chorus of opposition from city officials and residents convinced SVDR to opt for an empty, seven-acre public facility lot on Obata Court near the South Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant in south Gilroy.
This way the 40,000- to 50,000-square-foot transfer station won’t greet people coming into town from the east.
“It’s become apparent to us that there’s a perception problem with the transfer station,” said Couchee, referring to residents’ fears of a putrid, traffic-ridden nightmare.
“We didn’t want to have a transfer station at the gateway of our community,” City Administrator Jay Baksa said. “Everyone felt the transfer station was a good idea, but that was the wrong place,” with its new roads and all.
Couchee has accepted this, but he pointed out the lack of traffic and the absent stench Thursday afternoon at the transfer station. He added that since the new high-tech facility will be entirely enclosed, there’ll be even less stink in Gilroy.
“Stuff comes in and out of here so fast anyway, that it doesn’t smell,” Couchee said. He added that traffic concerns can be over-blown since collection trucks don’t run on the weekends, which is when most residents come to unload their stuff at $22 to $25 a cubic yard, depending on the materials.
While SVDR still has more than two years to relocate, Couchee said the schedule’s tight, but “we’ll get it done.”
The city has to conduct an environmental report on the future site, and Couchee said the next step is to file for a permit that the Planning Commission will review.
“The project will probably require just an initial study,” City Planner Melissa Durkin wrote in an e-mail. “This won’t require a zone change application or city council approval.”
The current facility’s 15 employees will keep their jobs that’ll move here, and the company’s seven 18-wheelers that actually transfer the trash and recyclables will park at the new facility, such as they do at the current one.
SVDR serves Morgan Hill, Gilroy, and county areas like San Martin, and its current facility has a 500 ton capacity. “To allow for future growth” in Morgan Hill and Gilroy, the new facility will have a 600 to 700 ton capacity, Couchee said.
“The facility is just for the communities around us,” Couchee said. “It’s all being generated right here in South County.”
At the new, grass-covered site, all was quiet Thursday afternoon except for the distant murmur of cars racing up and down U.S. 101. Empty Budweiser cans and crushed fast-food cups littered the lot, and they’ll likely remain there until Couchee and his team move in to take care of Gilroy’s garbage.
