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San Benito County weighs transfer-station plans as landfill nears capacity
Summary
County staff and landfill consultants presented two transfer-station concepts — an entrance facility at the John Smith Road Landfill and a larger Resource Recovery Park across the road — after the landfill operator withdrew expansion plans; capital costs are estimated at $10to20$20 million and delivered disposal via a transfer station could raise per-ton disposal costs to roughly $111to142.
San Benito County officials said the county must decide in the coming years how to handle the loss of local landfill capacity after the county—onfirmed its John Smith Road Landfill has roughly a decade or so of remaining life. Integrated Waste Manager Selena Statler told the Integrated Waste Management Local Task Force that the April 2025 aerial survey indicates an estimated closure date of April 2036 and that Waste Solutions Group (the landfill operator) filed a notice of termination of expansion on Nov. 5, 2025.
Consultants presented two primary options. One would convert the existing landfill entrance into a constrained transfer facility that takes advantage of established scales and a scale house but would have limited queuing and tipping-floor storage while the landfill remains open. The alternative — a Resource Recovery Park sited on county-owned land across the road — would provide more space, longer queuing areas and room for on-site diversion activities, such as roll-off collection, pre-sort and recycling operations.
Consultant Sangita Lewis said environmental impacts at the Resource Recovery Park would likely be "significant but mitigable" in categories such as visual impacts and air quality, while the entrance option would produce fewer new visual impacts because the site is already an active landfill entry. A separate design review by JRMA found the Resource Recovery Park could store about two days of incoming waste on its tipping floor versus roughly one day at the entrance facility, and it offers considerably greater capacity for on-site recycling and expansion.
On costs, staff and contractors gave only conceptual, order-of-magnitude figures. Capital costs for a transfer facility were estimated at roughly $10to20$20 million. Amortized over 20 years and divided across the county nnual tonnage used in the analysis (about 85,000 tons/year), the capital element alone equates to roughly $6 to $12.50 per ton; adding operations, transport and disposal produced an overall range of about $111to142 per ton in the county nalysis. Consultants noted that per-ton rates vary widely across the region depending on hauling arrangements and the disposal site chosen: staff cited examples between about $70 per ton (Salinas Valley average) and much higher Bay Area rates.
Board members and city representatives pressed staff for analysis of how those cost changes would affect residential franchise rates. "Disposal is only one component of the fee," Statler said; she added that disposal comprises a portion of existing customer bills and that franchise collections, collection operations and other services make up the remainder. Several members warned that increased disposal costs could fall hardest on low-income residents and urged staff to model and present explicit rate scenarios.
Members also raised traffic and neighborhood impacts from increased transfer and haul truck trips. Supervisor Crow and others emphasized that queueing and local truck routing would have to be engineered to avoid congestion and safety problems.
Staff said additional work remains: environmental and design studies, more-detailed cost modeling (particularly transport and disposal agreements with potential regional facilities), and community outreach. Consultants cautioned that permitting and construction timelines are long; Santa Cruz County—xperience shows alternative solutions can take many years to complete.
Next steps include further environmental and financial analysis, ongoing conversations with potential regional disposal partners and continued discussion with the local task force. Staff will return with more-detailed cost breakdowns and rate-impact modeling, and members asked staff to provide the underlying fee-study or formula documents used to calculate current franchise-permit percentage splits for member jurisdictions.
