GREEN ACRES AIN'T THE PLACE TO BE L.A. SLUDGE FARM FACING IRE OF KERN COUNTY VOTERS.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

TAFT - In the middle of Green Acres Farm on a barren stretch of the San Joaquin Valley, a truck stops, tips its trailer and drops 26 tons of steamy, smelly black sludge.

It looks like fresh asphalt, but this is human waste - heated and treated to make Grade A fertilizer.

While most Angelenos have no idea where their waste goes when they flush the toilet, Kern County has become obsessed with it. And in a special election set for June, Kern County voters will decide whether to ban sewage sludge as fertilizer.

The measure is expected to pass overwhelmingly in a region where local politicians complain their community is treated like the toilet of the Southland and Los Angeles sanitation officials are portrayed as ``sludge peddlers.''

``Why would anybody want crap to come to their town?'' said Janet Hawkins, 49, a retired hairdresser from Taft. ``If they don't want it, why would we?''

Los Angeles officials are keeping a close eye on the Keep Kern Clean measure which, if it passes, means the city would have to spend up to $21 million more each year to truck 750 tons of treated sewage a day to another facility in Arizona.

``We're not dumping a big mess on Kern County,'' said Nancy Sutley, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's deputy mayor for energy and the environment.

``The city has done the most environmentally responsible option possible. If we can't manage (our biosolids), if we're cut off from the most reasonable and best method, then people will start to notice it. We'll be left with only really, really expensive options.''

City officials are debating whether to campaign against the ballot measure. They also have to consider that cities are not only sending sludge to the San Joaquin Valley, but their prison inmates and hazardous waste, as well.

``There is a general and growing sense in the region that we are becoming the dumping ground for things that the coastal regions don't want,'' said Carol Whiteside, president of the Great Valley Center, a think tank in Modesto.

``I don't think that there's any requirement or inherent obligation that the valley take waste products from other regions. Every region should have to take care of its own waste... and exporting it to a region that is poor is inherently unfair.''

Los Angeles used to flush its sewage sludge in the ocean until 1987, when the practice was banned. Then, like most of the state's urban areas, L.A. began sending its solids to landfills and farms.

The city bought Green Acres Farm in 2000 for $9.6 million and then spent $35 million to upgrade its sewage treatment system to meet Kern County's tough environmental standards.

At Hyperion Treatment Plant in Playa Del Rey, the human waste is heated to 131 degrees for 12 days to kill pathogens and garner the ``Class A'' designation. The result is crumbly, black muck that could be combined with other materials and sold as commercial fertilizer.

Instead, the biosolids are loaded on trucks and hauled to the 4,688-acre farm south of Bakersfield, where its tilled into the soil to grow feed for farm animals.

Every day, some 28 trucks make the 120-mile trip to Green Acres Farm - a nod to the 1960s television show - at a cost of $7 million a year.

``People think it's all sloppy and messy to handle. This is not the stuff you flush down the toilet. This is treated to a high degree,'' explained Diane Gilbert Jones, who is the Bureau of Sanitation's point person on biosolids.

``If this was all bagged and we brought it here there would be no issue.''

Los Angeles does mix a small amount of treated sewage sludge in compost used in city landscaping. But Kern residents find inherent insult in the fact that Los Angeles sends 99.9 percent of its treated excrement to them.

``Los Angeles is saying, `We won't put it on our land, but it's beneficial use to you,''' said state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Bakersfield, who is leading the effort to ban biosolids.

Florez previously tried to ban the importation of sludge across county lines. When that legislation stalled, he launched the Keep Kern Clean initiative that would prohibit the land application of biosolids in unincorporated Kern County.

If Kern County voters approve the measure, Los Angeles would have about six months to find a new destination, most likely Arizona. Los Angeles County, Orange County and Oxnard also dump sludge in Kern County and would be impacted by the ban.

Gilbert Jones said the city would probably retain ownership of Green Acres, and farm it using chemical fertilizers.

Oilfield worker Ray Davis, 57, recalls stopping for ice cream at the gas station across the street from Green Acres Farm.

``You don't do it in the summertime now, the stench is so strong,'' Davis said. ``I'm dead set against them dumping that stuff. You can't put it in an area where it's eventually going to leach down and contaminate groundwater.''

Even former Angeleno Jimmy Ister is siding with his new Kern neighbors, who think L.A.'s waste is giving their rural county a bad name.

``I'm in the middle. I'm from L.A. originally, so I kind of understand. Now I live here and I've got my business here and I don't want it here either,'' said Ister, 34, who lives in Bakersfield and owns two small markets.

``I think it would be good for Los Angeles to find something else to do with it. I can tell you right now, it will be banned.''

Toilet jokes aside, Kern officials worry that sewage sludge carries pharmaceuticals and heavy metals - illegally dumped into the city's sewer system - that will eventually seep into groundwater beneath the site.

Green Acres Farm sits atop a segment of a vast groundwater basin where San Joaquin Valley water agencies and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have stored $10 trillion worth of water.

Although officials haven't found any evidence that biosolids have tainted groundwater after 15 years of use, the Kern Water Agency doesn't want to take any chances.

``We just have to be very, very careful about preserving what is probably our most precious asset,'' said Gene Lundquist, a director of the Kern Water Agency. ``We cannot allow our groundwater to become contaminated. It's easy to say now that nothing had been contaminated from sludge. Once it gets into groundwater it's very difficult to clean up.''

But Los Angeles officials say much of the groundwater is destined for Southland taps and they're just as protective.

``Why would we do anything that could even have the potential to damage our groundwater?'' Gilbert Jones asked.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, map

Photo:

(1 -- color) A canal in Taft runs through the Green Acres Farm, which is owned by the city of Los Angeles and utilizes L.A.'s sewage sludge as fertilizer.

(2 -- color) Kern County voters Janet Hawkins, left, and Vickie Gregory are both opposed to the Green Acres Farm in Taft. The fate the L.A.'s sludge will be voted on in June.

(3 -- color) Green Acres Farm sits atop $10 trillion worth of water stored by San Joaquin Valley water agencies and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

(4 -- color) ``You don't do it in the summertime now, the stench is so strong. I'm dead set against them dumping that stuff. You can't put it in an area where it's eventually going to leach down and contaminate groundwater,''

- Ray Davis, Oilfield worker

(5 -- color) Trucks that have just dumped sludge waste at the Green Acres Farm in Taft are washed as they exit and head back on the road.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer

Map:

LOS ANGELES' BIOSOLIDS FARM