Join our announce only email list. We can influence the decision makers and make change happen when we unite. Please leave your email address so we can keep in touch and let you when we need to act together.
At its core, Milpitas REACH consists of a handful of people who have full time jobs and families. We spend our weekends/late nights to plan/strategize and continue the fight to eliminate the man-made sources of odor polluting Milpitas.
We have no money left in our funds. We are asking for donations so we can build up to the San Jose Planning commission final decision meeting on the Newby Island Landfill Expansion permit in Aug. We would like to get the word out to the community about this important meeting.
You know that strong pungent rotten-egg odor — yeah! I am talking about the one you may have smelled if you lived around a landfill or traveled near one.
Recent citizen movements on San Jose landfills, specifically Newby and Guadalupe, have finally driven it home to San Jose city’s attention. Garbage war and related “odor” problem have been simmering in the underbelly for decades and begs to look at this problem from a citizen perspective.
I smelled that odor for the first time in the Bay Area when I settled in North San Jose right next to the expansive Cisco campus almost 16 years ago. A few SJ governments came and went and after 11 years of cribbing I moved as well. The problem has grown worse over the years and if you are around Zanker, you can smell it umpteen even today.
Recently, another set of SJ residents just started mobilizing and objecting to new garbage contracts at Guadalupe landfill in the heart of San Jose. North San Jose and Milpitas residents have been trying to bring Newby landfill and the odor problem to San Jose’s attention for years, but most of it has fallen to deaf years.
It would be interesting to see how SJ city officials differentiate their stand on “odor” to Americans living in the heart of the city, at the city outskirts and outside of its city limit.
We are all in the same state and nation then why is this differentiation on the quality of air we breathe?
Is a big city like San Jose defining stakeholders so narrowly just to represent core vote bank and high rollers, and hardly hesitate to deplete quality of life for others who don’t count in this skewed political algebra. Are we defining city priorities over people of our state and country?
The whole nation is watching how cities divide territories, who they will consider a citizen and how divided city-nations are growing within the great nation.
The reason I broach this subject — waste management handled inadequately has the potential of becoming even more contentious a subject than nuclear armament or sharing of water. With a caveat though, it could potentially involve two nations eventually, but more likely it will be between neighboring cities and between citizens of the same nation. Law of severe citizen self-interest and shortsighted city policy making are the causes for this war, and special interests (lawyers and consultants) are benefiting from the social divide.
Interestingly, odor producing facilities in our discussion are all within San Jose’s jurisdiction and San Jose’s action to mitigate the odor, at least in terms of any visible intervention, is missing.
One great lesson from great wars of history, and especially from the ones where motivated special-interest divided citizens to saddle them with below par alternatives as a result, “United we stand and Divided we fall.” This lesson should unify citizens across city lines. In a democratic nation every citizen should have the equal right to breathe odor free air, irrespective of which city they live in. Can we all unite behind that?
Join our us to Demand San Jose to Stop ALL Urban Landfill Expansions!
It is appalling that every single city around San Francisco Bay has closed down its landfills and yet, San Jose City continue to permit the growth of 5 landfills in environmentally sensitive locations, 4 of the 5 are within densely populated neighborhoods.
There are 8 public schools and about 100,000 people who work and live within 2 miles of Newby Island Resource Recovery Park which includes the largest bayfront landfill, largest recyclery and composting operation. Collectively, Newby Island has received 4000+ complaints and 32 Regulatory Violations from BAAQMD, LEA and RWQCB in the past 15 months. San Jose Planning Staff had acknowledged that the existing land uses are indeed incompatible.
Republic Services is quick to respin its story (see link below) for the referendum.
January’s article clearly stated RS had legal troubles which prevented them from bidding.
Republic Services General Manager Evan Boyd told the council that although the company only submitted a proposal for collecting garbage it would like to be considered for disposal service as well if legal issues involving odor complaints are ironed out.
“Given the legal proceedings surrounding the project we believed that in order for the city to contemplate using the Newby Island landfill there would need to be a number of issues resolved before that step could be taken,” Boyd said.
Now Republic is saying “City’s longtime waste hauler believes process used to select new waste disposer was not fair, competitive.” See article below.
We have reached a very critical juncture where 3 major decisions will be made on Republic Services’ Newby Island that affects your living environment. We call for your individual action to ensure citizen’s interest is not compromised. Show up & Speak Out!
If we don’t represent our concern in our own voice, then capitalists and lawyers will manipulate the legal and bureaucratic system to get a favorable decision that serves their interest without our voice being counted. Tell the decision makers your concerns are real and though you are represented at times by your city, community leaders or lawyers, that should not dilute your self-representation or be exploited.
Email your concerns to decision makers and show up at the following hearings:
Newby Island Class Action Settlement (1-12-CV-228591) Decision Maker: Judge Peter H Kirwan, pkirwan@scscourt.org Key Date: May 6, 2016 Fairness Hearing @ 9am, Superior Court, 191 N 1st St, San Jose
It is only through residents’ collective voices that we can win the war against the environmental injustice inflicted on our community. Time is now to act to be heard individually and show up to bring the citizen power to action!
Recent developments are appended for your reference. Thank You for your support.
Background Info:
If you are new to this issue, Newby Island has impacted the quality of life in Milpitas, Fremont and San Jose for decades. 23,000+ residents have signed the “Stop Newby Island Landfill Expansion” petition. In 2015, Newby received 19 regulatory violations (9 for public nuisance) and accounted for 90% of confirmed odor complaints. In the first 3 months of 2016, Newby received 4 regulatory violations and 800+ complaints were logged. Despite recurring violations and public objections, Republic Services continue to pursue Newby Island expansion to an unprecedented height, solicit new long term garbage contracts and deny any wrongdoing (class action settlement). For more information, visit milpitas-odor.info or like us on Facebook.
Recent Developments:
Class Action Lawsuit Settlement
600+ opt-out vs 200+ opt-in claims out of 6,800 households by 2/9/16 deadline signified strong dissent over settlement terms and inadequate representation of class members
90+ letters from residents outside “1.5 miles radius” objected to the arbitrary class definition
Suspicious addition of “Dawn Lepik” as a new named plaintiff on 3/16/16 “to protect the interest of the settlement class” after Dolly Wu (original plaintiff) confided to “not spend enough time to understand the facts and situation about the settlement”
Deadline extension for claims only and denying absent class members’ rights to object or opt-out constitutes bad faith and conflict of interest
Attorneys attempt to discredit high opt-outs as being influenced by misinformation
Newby Island Expansion Permit
Recurring regulatory violations and odor complaints in 2015/16 signify on-going problems. It is against San Jose Municipal Code Section 20.100.940 to issue permit that has unacceptable negative effect on adjacent property or properties
New odor study results will be revealed – Don’t miss it!
Bylaws is being amended on 4/13/16 where only 3 affirmative votes are needed pass a motion for the permit hearing (compared to 4 in the original bylaws)
Milpitas City Long Term Garbage Contracts
City is finalizing 2 separate new contracts: 20-year disposal contract (Part 1) and 10-year collection contract (Part 2)
Part 1: On 3/15/16, City Council awarded the 20-year disposal contract to Guadalupe Landfill in San Jose based on the lowest competitive bid. For the 1st time in Milpitas’ history, its waste will not be disposed at Newby Island. However, Allied Waste (a subsidiary of Republic Services) has sponsored a referendum to overturn Milpitas City Council’s selection of Guadalupe Landfill
Part 2: Republic Services are among 6 bidders for the collections contract worth $10+ million/year. Bids will be revealed and finalized by June 2016
Milpitas Residents,
Please beware of paid petition gatherers trying to overturn city council disposal contract decision. They’re using scare tactics (such as garbage rate hike) to solicit signature. In reality, the city council already selected the lowest bid.
Please alert your friends and neighbors to not sign this referendum.
It appears that the person collecting signatures is spreading false information. Please note that the city has not released any change to garbage fees since only the disposal contract was finalized (20% of cost) while collection contract (80% of cost) is still pending.
Specifically for disposal contract, the city council selected the lowest bid at $42.78/ton (i.e. Guadalupe Landfill in San Jose). City staff estimated that we are currently paying between $43-$50/ton to Newby. The consultant also revealed that San Jose City currently pays Newby $44.96/ton.
We are appalled that we have been paying higher than our neighboring cities all this while to smell their trash. We should support city council decision to go with the lowest bid and send our garbage to San Jose for a change.
Unfortunately Allied Waste is using paid signature gathers to acquiring enough votes to place a referendum on the ballot to allow the voters to overturn the City Council’s unanimous decision. Allied Waste has the ability to run an expensive campaign with misleading scare tactic messages. Allied Waste is a subsidiary of Republic Services.
Milpitas’ 30-year contract with Republic Services for garbage collection and disposal (landfill) ends in September 2017. City is currently finalizing 2 separate new contracts: a 10-year garbage collection and 20-year disposal contract.
On Tuesday March 14th, during the Milpitas City Council meeting, the residents of Milpitas has scored an important victory. The garbage disposal contract for the next 20 years was awarded to Waste Management Inc (Guadalupe landfill, San Jose). As residents of Milpitas, we’ll no longer bury our waste in our own backyard (Newby Island Landfill on Dixon Landing). Guadalupe landfill received 34 unconfirmed odor complaints in the last 2 years while Newby has about 3,000 complaints in Milpitas in the last 12 months.
We have sent a clear message to Republic Services (Newby Island Landfill’s operator) that having a landfill next to a residential area and environmentally sensitive wildlife refuge no longer provide them with a competitive advantage. We, the people, are standing up to defend our rights for clean air/water and we have the will and determination to continue fighting until the landfill has been closed.
Having a landfill at the doorstep of Milpitas did not help Republic Service to get the disposal (landfill) contract from Milpitas. Also having a landfill in the heart of Silicon Valley will hurt their garbage collection business as well.
Milpitas has started the evaluation process for the garbage collection 10 year contract valued at an estimated amount of $100M+. Shortlisting process has already started to narrow down from the current 6 bidders.
Please join our efforts of emailing City Council members to NOT AWARD THE GARBAGE COLLECTION CONTRACT TO REPUBLIC SERVICES as long as they pursue their landfill expansion permit which would raise the landfill’s height to an unprecedented 250 feet and extend the life of the landfill indefinitely.
Cut/Paste these email addresses and send your comments directly to the city council:
The smelly Newby Island Landfill is a San Jose facility and under San Jose’s jurisdiction. Although Milpitas won’t be dumping its Garbage at Newby, other cities will still be using the facility, so it will remain open until it reaches capacity. If the expansion permit goes through, the landfill will be open for a very very long time.
Republic’s long term disposal contract with City of San Jose ends in 2020, Cupertino in 2023, Santa Clara in 2024. I believe Los Altos Hills contract ends before 2023. If we want a shot to keep the closure date in 2025 (as originally promised when the expansion was proposed in 2007 and approved in 2012), we need to make sure no new long term contracts are ever granted.
Jerry Brown signed AB341 to mandate 75% diversion by year 2020 (http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/75percent/). Where as City of San Jose adopted a more aggressive goal to achieve 100% diversion (zero waste) by 2022. Since the state law lags city level goals, we can’t use existing state laws to force landfill closure. There are recent reports that San Jose’s recycling rate has been dropping. So there’s no telling if it can really achieve it’s 2022 target.
Stopping Milpitas’s contract renewal is the first step.
