Tajiguas Resource Recovery Project/Material Delivery Commitment

Tajiguas Resource Recovery Project/Material Delivery Commitment

The City of Santa Barbara approved a Material Delivery Commitment and Processing Services Agreement whereby the City of Santa Barbara has agreed to deliver its franchise municipal solid waste, source separated food scraps, and source separated comingled recyclables to the Tajiguas Resource Recovery Project for a term of 22 years. This approval serves, in part, to provide the financing for the Project, thereby making the City a responsible agency pursuant to CEQA Guide Section 15381. When approving the Material Delivery Agreement, the City Council considered the above referenced EIR prepared by the County of Santa Barbara. The TRRP would modify current waste management operations at the Tajiguas Landfill by the addition of a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) and Dry Fermentation Anaerobic Digestion (AD) Facility. The MRF processing area would be comprised of an approx. 56,500 sq. ft. facility (66,500 sf if CSSR [optional element is included) that would sort MSW into three streams: Recyclables (i.e. glass, metal, paper, plastic, wood) - recovered and processed for sale; Organics - recovered for processing in the Anaerobic Digestion Facility; and Residue - materials left over after all recyclables and organics are recovered that would be disposed of at the existing landfill. The AD facility would be housed within an approx. 63,600 sf building, and associated energy facility and percolate storage tanks that would convert all organics recovered from the MSW and SSOW into: Bio-gas (primarily composed of methane and CO2) - that would be used to power (2) 1,573 horsepower onsite combined heat and power (CHP) engines driving electric power generators that would generate approx. 1+ net megawatts of renewable power continuously. The Energy Facility would be located on the south side of the AD Facility; and Digestate - that can then be cured into compost and/or soil amendments. The curing would require an approx. 5 acre on the landfill top deck. The compost and/or soil amendments would be marketed for agricultural or landscape use or used for reclamation projects. Construction of the facility (MRF, AD Facility and Composting Area) would require approx.. 143,625 cubic yards of cut and 167,595 cubic yards of fill. The MRF would have a design capacity of up to 800 tons/year (290 tons/day) of recyclable material would be recovered and sold for reuse. The AD facility would have a design capacity of up to 73,600 tons/year, made up of organics recovered from the MRF and/or brought to the project site as SSOW. Up to 100,000 tons/year (320 tons/day) of residue from the MRF and residue from the AD Facility which is not suitable for composting would be landfilled. Residue ineligible for disposal in the landfill (i.e., hazardous waste or e-waste), would be transported to an appropriate recycling or disposal facility. As an optional element, the project would also process up to 130 tons/day of CSSR or 40,000 tons/year. With the inclusion of this optional element, the total maximum processing capacity of the MRF would be approx.. 290,000 tons/year (250,000 tons/year MSW + 40,000 tons/year CSSR). Processing of CSSR would increase the production of marketable recyclables by up to 36,000 tons/year (126,000 tons/year overall), producing up to an additional 4,000 tons/year (13 tons/day) of residue which would be disposed of in the landfill.

Goleta, Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara