Pressure grows to close controversial Napa Valley landfill

(Story updated 8/14/24 to reflect that the Suscol Intertribal Council has also signed the letter.)

A coalition of environmental groups are pushing California officials to close a Napa Valley-area landfill that has been the site of repeated regulatory violations and is suspected of sending toxic chemicals into local waterways, which drain into the river that irrigates the valley’s famous vineyards.

In a letter finalized Aug. 14, seven local nonprofit organizations called on officials overseeing waste management and water quality to shut down the Clover Flat Landfill and the related garbage collection recycling and composting operation called Upper Valley Disposal Services (UVDS).

The landfill is “long overdue to move its waste operations to a safer, less environmentally sensitive location,” the groups wrote.

The letter was signed by Sierra Club Redwood Chapter, Non-Toxic Neighborhoods, Napa Vision 2050, Institute for Conservation Advocacy Research & Education, Preserve Rural Sonoma County, the Save Napa Valley Foundation and the Suscol Intertribal Council, a group that works to preserve Native American culture in the Napa Valley area. The letter was also signed by Geoff Ellsworth, the former mayor of the St. Helena community, and local activist Anne Wheaton.

Last year, a group of more than 20 former and then-current employees of Clover Flat and UVDS filed a formal complaint to federal and state agencies, including the US Department of Justice, alleging “clearly negligent practices” in management of “toxic and hazardous materials at UVDS/CFL over decades”.

The employees cited “inadequate and compromised infrastructure and equipment” that they said was “affecting employees as well as the surrounding environment and community.”

Clover Flat Landfill and UVDS are owned by Waste Connections, a large national waste management company.

The Napa Valley wine industry has not publicly expressed concern about pollution from the landfill.

Under scrutiny

The call to close the landfill operations comes on the heels of a visit to UVDS by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) last week, during which federal investigators recovered boxes from the facility, according to a local news outlet.

Ron Mittelstaedt, the president and CEO of Waste Connections, did not respond to a request for comment about the purpose for the FBI visit or the coalition call for the operations to close.

The FBI has been conducting a broad federal investigation in Napa County over the last year, though the specifics of the probe have not been made public.

An online petition to decommission Clover Flat Landfill and UVDS, launched in 2021, has received over 500 signatures. In its Aug. 12 newsletter, Napa Vision 2050, a coalition of more than a dozen Napa County neighborhood groups, urged community members to submit further letters to local authorities calling for the landfill’s operations to cease.

The effort to pressure regulators to close the landfill and the UVDS operations appears to be gaining momentum. In late July and early August, the Sierra Club Redwood Chapter and the nonprofit Non-Toxic Neighborhoods submitted individual letters to local authorities calling to close down the landfill. Napa Valley’s oversight agencies are “responsible for protecting public health and Napa’s natural resources for generations to come,” wrote Kim Konte, founder of Non-Toxic Neighborhoods.

Napa County Solid Waste Program Manager Peter Ex declined to comment about the recent letters. The State Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) is conducting an active investigation of Clover Flat Landfill and is not in a position to comment at this time, said a spokesperson for the Water Board. Mittelstaedt, The Upper Valley Waste Management Agency and the Napa County Board of Supervisors did not respond to a request for comment.

Environmental concerns

Clover Flat landfill is one of thousands of US sites suspected of contamination with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – harmful chemicals linked to cancers and other health issues that persist in the environment and accumulate in humans and animals. A third-party analysis in 2020 identified PFAS in all samples collected from leachate and groundwater at the landfill.

Water Board staff sampled a creek that flows alongside the landfill shortly after a period of heavy rainfall in January 2023. In an email obtained from a recent public records request, staff described “striking” results, reporting that they found the same PFAS compounds in the creek that were identified in the leachate and groundwater at Clover Flat in the 2020 report.

Last year, the landfill was fined over $600,000 following an investigation by the Water Board, the Napa County District Attorney’s Office and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which found that 40,000 gallons of contaminated stormwater were allegedly discharged from Clover Flat into a nearby stream, among other violations.

The landfill has also allegedly mishandled radioactive materials, leading to the hospitalization of an employee, and several fires have broken out at the site.

Both the landfill and UVDS were owned for decades by the wealthy and politically well-connected Pestoni family, whose vineyards were first planted in the Napa Valley area in 1892. The family sold the landfill and disposal services unit to Waste Connections last year amid a barrage of complaints.

(Featured image: Clover Flat Landfill. Drone photo taken by environmental activist Anne Wheaton.)