Salinas Valleyelected officials are poised to move forwardthis week with new technologies designed to make landfills obsolete. But some environmentalists say, not so fast. Bay Area-based Green Action deployed a half dozen canvassers in Gonzales neighborhoods on Jan. 17 in an eleventh-hour attempt to urge residents to question the plan before the Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority board chooses between two vendors vying to build a plant that would zap garbage into fuel at the Johnson Canyon landfill in Gonzales, a move that is expected Jan. 20. 


“I think it’s time to call the question,” says Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue, an SVSWA board member. “Who would be the best vendor?”


A vote would trigger an environmental review of the winning technology under the California Environmental Quality Act.


The contest pits Canada’s Plasco Energy Group, whose first Ottawa plant is still in the demonstration phase, against Urbaser, Inc., a long-established Spanish firm that operates plants around the world. Both companies will make final pitches at the Jan. 20 meeting. Each would bear the cost of building the Gonzales facilities, and in exchange, would demand that SVSWA supply them with enough junk to convert to energy. Also on the table, to complement any proposed facility, is an autoclave system that would process non-recyclable paper.


But the cost of operating an Urbaser facility – an estimated $23 million – dwarfs Plasco’s $7.5 million estimated maximum cost, making Plasco the favorite of SVSWA staff, says SVSWA General Manager Patrick Mathews. 


Plasco’s technology zaps garbage with heat as intense as a lightning bolt to convert it to fuel, and then processes the so-called syngas to return it to the electricity grid. But local press reports show operations have been rocky at the company’s Ottawa facility, with the plant sometimes out of service.


Urbaser proposes using microorganisms to break down organic waste and its own trash-to-fuel conversion technology, says company Vice President David Garcia.


But Green Action’s Bradley Angel argues both companies essentially will use incineration, fouling the air with potentially dangerous emissions. 


Mathews says no one has compared the companies’ emissions to those of landfills. 


“We don’t want to completely invalidate what they’re saying,” Mathews says of his critics. “That’s why we want to take it to CEQA.”