Landfill gases may cost Santa Monica millions
(Editor’s note: This story is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures appearing on upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agendas.)
By Carolyn Sackariason
Daily Press Staff Writer
Millions of dollars will be spent tonight with only one vote required by the Santa Monica City Council.
From building new bathrooms at city parks, to leasing a new building for a temporary library and replacing Main Street’s sewer system, the Santa Monica City Council is expected to approve more than $8 million worth of public improvements at its meeting tonight.
Five items on the consent agenda total approximately $9 million, with about half being paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency funds stemming from the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
About $4.4 million will come from a city that is facing an $18 million budget shortfall next year. All of the expenditures are payments to outside construction and consulting firms.
Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the city council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public. However, many of the items have been part of public discussion in the past.
The council also is expected to authorize city staff to negotiate the purchase of a 33,700-building at 1751-1753 Cloverfield Boulevard. If the council authorizes the negotiations, the acquisition will be discussed publicly in the future. Although there is no use identified for the building, staff has suggested that it could be used for social services programs.
The largest item scheduled for approval on the consent agenda is for Main Street’s sewer rehabilitation and roadway restoration projects, which is set to begin after the holiday season and last through May of 2003.
While the federal government is putting $4.4 million toward the project, the city is paying $2.5 million to line portions of the city with new sewer pipes and repave Main Street. After the Jan. 17, 1994 earthquake, the city accepted $78 million from FEMA to repair damaged sewer systems throughout Santa Monica.
The Ocean Avenue and Main Street projects include lining portions of the system with 30- to 39-inch diameter sewer pipes and rehabilitating maintenance structures on Colorado and Ocean avenues, Pico Boulevard and Main Street, plus the repaving of Main Street from Pico Boulevard to the southern city limit.
The second largest expenditure on tonight’s consent agenda involves designing a retrofit construction project for parking structure No. 5, located on the west side of Fourth Street between Broadway Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard.
The council will approve an additional $581,312 onto a contract with a company that’s retrofitting two other downtown parking structures. The total contract is for $1.5 million.
The work may be scheduled to begin in January 2004, shortly after a seismic retrofit construction project on parking structure No. 7 is completed. In that case, construction on parking structure No. 5 will be done by November 2004. However, if design studies show that the work will significantly reduce available parking to 657-space structure, then construction will be scheduled from January 2005 to November 2005, according to the staff report.
Because all of the city’s downtown parking structures were damaged by the Northridge earthquake, they all needed repairs and seismic retrofitting. Recent cost estimates have shown actual costs will substantially exceed the available funding from FEMA.
Also, city funds totaling $580,076 will be used for improvements to a building at 1324 Fifth Street, which the city has leased as a temporary library. The main library will be closed starting in January so a new one can be built in its place.
City staff has also recommended that $452,755 be spent on building new bathrooms at Joslyn Park and remodeling existing ones at Reed Park. The expenditure is part of a city-wide, multi-million dollar project that includes improvements to facilities at eight parks throughout Santa Monica.
A problem with gases generated by a decomposing landfill underneath the city yards and Stewart Street Park, is costing the city $786,310 to pay a consulting firm to operate, maintain and monitor a landfill gas extraction system.
The city has installed and is operating a system to collect and treat landfill gases generated from the former landfill that is now inactive. Because of the complexity and specialized nature of the engineered system, staff believes an experienced consultant provide the services.
Because landfills generate potentially hazardous gases for years, city staff anticipates the system will need to be operated for 10 to 12 years. However, the $786,310 expenditure is only for a three-year contract because staff currently is unable to develop a comprehensive and cost effective scope of what services are needed in the future.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 12, 2002. Read the original PDF.