Santa Rosa details rapid growth, oversight upgrades in Laguna trucked-waste program

Sean McNeal, deputy director of environmental services for Santa Rosa Water, told the Board of Public Utilities on Oct. 2 that the Laguna Treatment Plant’s trucked-waste program has grown rapidly and the utility has added monitoring, fee changes and operational controls to protect the treatment plant.

The program began by accepting landfill leachate and gray water and expanded after the city adopted a trucked-waste master plan and a revised fee schedule, McNeal said. “We conducted a trucked waste master plan to take a look at the, the waste coming to us and evaluate to make sure that we're collecting the appropriate fees based on the costs,” he said.

City managers said the growth matters because it now produces significant revenue but also creates operational stress on the plant and requires more oversight and equipment maintenance. Santa Rosa’s calendar-year tipping fees rose from roughly $2,000,000 in 2018 to more than $4,000,000 in 2023–2024, McNeal said, and the city has adjusted fees to reflect costs and the energy offsets from high-strength wastes.

McNeal described program changes introduced in recent years: a…