SOURCE:IMPERIAL VALLEY PRESS

By DARREN SIMON, Staff Writer

Saturday, January 20, 2007 9:09 PM PST

Those against a sludge plant being built near Niland stepped up their campaign this month by calling for a ballot item that would ask voters to kill the project.

Opponents of the sludge plant, which would process human waste from other counties, submitted their intent to the county Election’s Office to distribute a petition calling for a voter referendum.

They need 1,109 registered voters to sign the petition to qualify what they are calling the “Health and Safety Ordinance of 2007” for an election this year, said Dolores Provencio, the county’s registrar of voters.

Heading the petition drive, according to documents presented to the county, are Calipatria City Council members Leonard Vasquez and Patricia Nelson, Brawley City Councilwoman Jo Shields, former Holtville councilman Victor Gillespie and Rosalinda Nava Bermudez, one of the most vocal opponents of the project.

“I’m against the project; there is no secret about that,” Shields said. “I don’t want to wait for the EIR to say that. I want to say that now.”

The intent to circulate a petition was presented to the Elections Office Jan. 8.

The County Counsel’s Office now is preparing an official ballot title and summary, Provencio said. Once that is finished, it will be up to those heading the petition drive to publish their intent to seek signatures on a petition.

At that point they can begin the drive. Provencio said it could be a month before the petition drive can get under way.

Wilson Nolan of Bakersfield-based Liberty Energy, the company that has proposed the sludge plant, said he questions those who would seek to kill the project before the environmental impact report outlining the project is released.

“If that is the direction they are going, I question how seriously the Valley is in really wanting economic development,” Nolan said.

He said his project offers a sustainable system to handling the manure produced in the Valley, a viable renewable energy project and a way to manage the greenhouse gas emissions by cutting down the dependence on fossil fuels.

Those against the project have argued the project would impact the Valley’s air quality and harm the economy as other industry would not locate into a county that is home to a sludge plant.

“Imperial County should not become the dumping ground for human waste from urban counties,” those heading the petition drive say in their proposed ordinance.

They say Imperial County already has air pollution issues that cause respiratory illness.

“Any additional decline of air quality in the Valley will further increase respiratory ailments for all residents of the county,” the proposed ordinance says.

The campaign against the sludge plants rings familiar in Imperial County.

An earlier project proposed by Liberty Energy was killed by the company itself in the face of a public outcry to stop the project.

Nolan said he has no plans at this point to stop the permit process for the new project, which is company submitted in October.

“We are not withdrawing or slowing the project because of the detractors,” Nolan said.

>> Staff Writer Darren Simon can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or at 337-3445.