Within months, Sonoma Compost will cease operations. Where once flowers and the finest food emerged from organic black gold made of otherwise unwanted rubbish, instead our own waste is once again to be seen as a burden, to be rid of, cast-off no matter the cost, economically nor environmentally.
Surely the decision-makers behind this week’s forced closure of Sonoma Compost feel no sense of victory today; I do not envy their position. Because while a handful of plaintiffs pleading “Not in My Backyard!” with misguided claims of environmental concern have won, the losers are countless: our farmers, gardeners and viticulturists; our local food economy; our drought-stricken earth and carbon-leaching soil; our atmosphere tainted by the fumes of trucks (a service costing taxpayers millions) that will soon haul more than 100,000 tons of waste out of our county each year, only to return again with imported compost—if not loaded with food that our own farmers and gardeners may no longer afford to grow here, given the increased cost of materials and shipping.
And me? I have lost bragging rights. No longer can I boast of my community’s green waste stream, a keystone in our national leadership in localized sustainability—the image that lured me to this seemingly forward-thinking and abundant county in the first place. The rest of the world must now look elsewhere, to other counties, for examples to follow.
In the coming months, as we stroll through our celebrated farmers markets and dine at our famed eateries, asking if imported soil invalidates “local food”, I pray the Press Democrat is dead wrong in calling our efforts “fruitless”. Some say the issues at Sonoma Compost began years ago. If so, why hadn’t we come together sooner, before it was too late? Before the legal bills pilled up and our own county Supervisors grew tired of this whole mess?
To the community who in past few weeks rallied to keep compost local—the thousands who signed a petition by The Farmers Guild to find a pragmatic solution, the droves of passionate residents who appeared at last-minute public hearings—let’s not stop here. Rather let's start working with our local leaders now to reaffirm our priorities and assure that nothing like this happens again. Let’s collectively build local systems that anticipate not just bureaucratic and legal predicaments like the ones that doomed Sonoma Compost, but systems that anticipate the county (and the world) that our children’s children will inherit.
And most important of all: let us have compassion for our neighbors who perceive those trucks departing our county with precious un-composted waste as their “victory”. Perhaps they have yet to learn that our greatest triumph as a community will be won not with litigation but rather with local innovation, leadership for the future, and a proud responsibility that comes from bountifully managing our own waste. In the coming weeks, months, and years, please join me in standing up to loudly demand: Not in Someone Else’s Backyard! ( #notinsomeoneelsesbackyard )
Evan Wiig
The Farmers Guild
*** Stay tuned for more updates on how you can join us for a continued fight to keep our own waste within county lines, bring back local composting, and assure that these public services are determined not by lawyers, foreign companies or browbeaten county policy-makers, but by our own community.
Surely the decision-makers behind this week’s forced closure of Sonoma Compost feel no sense of victory today; I do not envy their position. Because while a handful of plaintiffs pleading “Not in My Backyard!” with misguided claims of environmental concern have won, the losers are countless: our farmers, gardeners and viticulturists; our local food economy; our drought-stricken earth and carbon-leaching soil; our atmosphere tainted by the fumes of trucks (a service costing taxpayers millions) that will soon haul more than 100,000 tons of waste out of our county each year, only to return again with imported compost—if not loaded with food that our own farmers and gardeners may no longer afford to grow here, given the increased cost of materials and shipping.
And me? I have lost bragging rights. No longer can I boast of my community’s green waste stream, a keystone in our national leadership in localized sustainability—the image that lured me to this seemingly forward-thinking and abundant county in the first place. The rest of the world must now look elsewhere, to other counties, for examples to follow.
In the coming months, as we stroll through our celebrated farmers markets and dine at our famed eateries, asking if imported soil invalidates “local food”, I pray the Press Democrat is dead wrong in calling our efforts “fruitless”. Some say the issues at Sonoma Compost began years ago. If so, why hadn’t we come together sooner, before it was too late? Before the legal bills pilled up and our own county Supervisors grew tired of this whole mess?
To the community who in past few weeks rallied to keep compost local—the thousands who signed a petition by The Farmers Guild to find a pragmatic solution, the droves of passionate residents who appeared at last-minute public hearings—let’s not stop here. Rather let's start working with our local leaders now to reaffirm our priorities and assure that nothing like this happens again. Let’s collectively build local systems that anticipate not just bureaucratic and legal predicaments like the ones that doomed Sonoma Compost, but systems that anticipate the county (and the world) that our children’s children will inherit.
And most important of all: let us have compassion for our neighbors who perceive those trucks departing our county with precious un-composted waste as their “victory”. Perhaps they have yet to learn that our greatest triumph as a community will be won not with litigation but rather with local innovation, leadership for the future, and a proud responsibility that comes from bountifully managing our own waste. In the coming weeks, months, and years, please join me in standing up to loudly demand: Not in Someone Else’s Backyard! ( #notinsomeoneelsesbackyard )
Evan Wiig
The Farmers Guild
*** Stay tuned for more updates on how you can join us for a continued fight to keep our own waste within county lines, bring back local composting, and assure that these public services are determined not by lawyers, foreign companies or browbeaten county policy-makers, but by our own community.
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