On May 21st, RCRC-sponsored Assembly Bill 2902 (Wood, D-Healdsburg) passed the Assembly by a vote of 73-0. AB 2902, which provides additional flexibility to local governments implementing CalRecycle’s SB 1383 organic waste diversion regulations, now advances to the Senate where it will likely be heard in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee in mid-June.
CalRecycle’s SB 1383 regulations impose many requirements on local agencies, are generally tailored to work within the solid waste collection system that exists in urban areas, and are often poorly suited to deal with the needs and challenges of lower-population and rural areas. The regulations provide very little flexibility to accommodate differing local needs, and rural and sparsely populated areas of the state face many of the greatest implementation challenges and cost increases.
AB 2902 extends the existing rural exemption under which the state’s 19 counties with fewer than 70,000 residents (and cities within those counties) are exempt from SB 1383’s collection and procurement obligations. Those 19 counties are Lake, San Benito, Tehama, Tuolumne, Calaveras, Siskiyou, Amador, Lassen, Glenn, Del Norte, Colusa, Inyo, Plumas, Mariposa, Trinity, Mono, Modoc, Sierra, and Alpine. The bill also provides three years for rural jurisdictions that outgrow that population cap to come into full compliance with SB 1383.
For slightly larger counties, AB 2902 allows the 12 non-rural counties that generate less than 200,000 tons of solid waste annually (El Dorado, Humboldt, Imperial, Kings, Mendocino, Madera, Napa, Nevada, Shasta, Yuba, Sutter, and Yolo Counties) to submit an alternative organic waste management plan for most of their unincorporated areas to CalRecycle for approval. That process is expected to provide more flexibility for CalRecycle to take into consideration and accommodate unique local needs and challenges.
AB 2902 also seeks to provide more flexibility for CalRecycle to consider granting additional “elevation waivers” for areas below 4,500 feet in elevation and where nearby bear populations pose a public safety and animal welfare risk. Other components of AB 2902 seek to increase local benefits from edible food recovery programs, sustain the use of organics for local animal feed practices, promote carbon farming, adjust procurement targets to exclude populations covered by exemptions, facilitate the development of smaller-scale community composting programs, and reinforce existing caselaw that local compost and mulch give aways as well as rebates are not a gift of public funds.
RCRC’s letter of support is available here. For more information, contact RCRC Senior Policy Advocate, John Kennedy.