Reopening sought for Santa Paula blast site

Patriot Environmental Services this week applied for a permit allowing the company to reopen and expand the Santa Clara Waste Water Co. plant, which has been closed since a chemical explosion two years ago at the facility outside Santa Paula.

The company based in the Los Angeles area is seeking to accept the same type of waste the owners of the Santa Clara plant accepted before the blast. Included are oilfield sludge, sewage and industrial wastewater.

Santa Clara Waste Water Co. plus nine company managers and executives have been indicted on criminal charges related to the plant's operations. Reports showed several people were injured as a result of the explosion, including a worker and firefighters responding to the scene. The criminal case is pending.

Patriot submitted the permit application Monday, county planning manager Brian Baca said. The cleanup and waste management company is seeking to reinstate and modify the permit that allowed Santa Clara Waste Water Co. to operate the plant.

Patriot is in the process of acquiring the plant, but the deal is contingent on getting permission to reopen, the application says. The Ventura County Board of Supervisors is the body with the power to OK the permit after managers review the application.

Patriot officials expressed optimism that they can persuade residents and public officials to accept the reopening of the facility.

“Patriot is above all committed to safety and compliance with the law, and recognizes the need for treatment of waste and particularly domestic waste in Ventura County,” said company attorney David Stern.

The company will work with regulators to provide environmentally safe treatment of the waste, he said.

Santa Paula Councilman John Procter said Patriot seems to have a good reputation in town but he expects residents to be apprehensive about the reopening of the plant.

"I think it will probably get a negative reaction," he said. "There's a real stigma from what happened. Personally, I feel the problem was not with the facility. It was with the operators."

Next, county staff members will review the application for completeness. Once it's complete, planners are expected to determine what type of environmental review is required, write the environmental document and circulate it for comments before making a recommendation to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors. The proposal is not expected to go to the supervisors for a decision until summer or later.

The supervisor representing the district where the plant lies has changed with the retirement of Kathy Long and the election of Kelly Long in November. But the new supervisor expressed the same priorities her predecessor did.

"The public's health and welfare is of the utmost importance," Kelly Long said.

Patriot is also negotiating with Oxnard city officials to resume sending waste from the facility through a 12-mile pipeline to a treatment facility in Oxnard, according to the permit application. City officials stopped accepting waste from the plant after the blast.

Before Oxnard agrees to accept the waste again, Patriot is asking the county for permission to accept sludge from oilfield operations at the plant. The sludge would go to a landfill off site, not be sent through the pipeline.

Santa Clara's permit specifies operating hours that were essentially at the company's discretion. Patriot is seeking to operate 365 days a year, around the clock. The trucking schedule would be lengthened for two more hours on weekdays, extending the period from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The company is seeking to triple the number of employees to 45, split into three shifts. Officials are proposing 500 truck trips a week, which is the same that was formerly allowed, the application says.

Patriot was hired to clean up the plant site at 815 Mission Rock Road after the explosion.

The rear of a vacuum truck exploded before dawn on Nov. 18, 2014, at the plant, causing a chemical spill that ignited into spot fires after the substance crystallized. An internal investigation showed the blast was likely the result of an unintentional mixture of a treatment chemical with domestic waste.