Asphalt Plant Opponents Prepare for Trial

Opponents of the near Shollenberger Park are readying for battle this week as the lawsuit they’ve filed against the county and Dutra Materials goes to trial on Friday.

The plaintiffs, which include the city of Petaluma, Moms for Clean Air, Friends of Shollenberger and several other groups and individuals, are suing the county for approving the project last December.

San Rafael-based Dutra Materials wants to build a plant that produces 225,000 tons of asphalt a year, including rubberized asphalt, and do asphalt recycling and crushing. It argues that producing local asphalt is more environmentally sound than trucking it in from other locations.

But many Petalumans are outraged about the supervisors’ approval of the plant, citing impacts to air quality, noise and traffic for the entire community.

In their suit, filed just days after the county approval of the project, opponents cite nine “causes of action” that they say make clear that the project should have never been approved.

Among them:

-   That the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) done on the project does not take into account the changes made by Dutra, including moving all barge off-loading to the nearby facility, then transporting the aggregate by truck and by a 800-foot conveyor belt through a wetlands area;

-    the fact that board never voted to certify the EIR and failed to adopt the findings of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review;

-    that the county approved a project that conflicts with the Sonoma County General Plan, by creating an industrial zone in a flood plain and not obtaining the necessary voter approval. That’s because the project lies within the so-called community separator area created in 1989 by Measure D in order to protect land from development. Under Measure D, only voters can change the land designation to industrial;

-     that the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors violated the Brown Act by not giving the public enough time to review 100 pages of new documents submitted on the morning of Dec. 14, the same day the board voted on the project.

For its part, Dutra says that five years of discussions before the project was approved, including seven public hearings, have given people ample time to express their concerns and the project is significantly smaller and less impactful than originally proposed. They also say that not a single regulatory agency opposed the approved project once changes to it were made.

Friday’s suit will be heard by Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Rene Chouteau. But unlike non-CEQA trials, there will be no jury and no evidence presented. In fact, Judge Chouteau will have already read all the submitted records—there’s an estimated 50,000 pages of the stuff—and may issue a ruling the very same day, according to Richard Drury, the plaintiffs’ counsel.

One possible outcome is that Chouteau would require a new EIR be conducted. Or he could revoke the approval of the project entirely. Either way, the opponents say they are feeling optimistic that they have the evidence to block the project.

“We’re quite confident in the strength of our case,” says David Keller, founder and director of the Petaluma River Council and one of the plaintiffs in the suit.