My name is Jose Garibay Jr. and I am a former employee of Upper Valley Disposal Service/Clover Flat Landfill (UVDS/CFL) in Napa County, Ca.
These problems include company practices of failing to notify the proper authorities, of substantial water contamination and fire activity at both Clover Flat Landfill near Calistoga and the UVDS Whitehall Lane waste site near St. Helena. The Water Contamination comes from Trash, Recycling Green Waste Materials, Compost, and collection trucks and equipment leading to leachate.
These issues also clearly impact wildlife and habitat.
I was living onsite at the UVDS Whitehall Lane site and my experience included putting down many fires, sometimes on a daily basis at the UVDS Whitehall Lane site, and was aware of fires occurring too at Clover Flat Landfill that were not reported to authorities and that put employees and the public at risk.
With respect to the water contamination, the compost is sprayed down with contaminated leachate on a daily basis. Additionally in significant storm events, like the one we had in October 2021, the water levels rose significantly and the leachate ponds were reaching capacity. In January of 2022 we were directed by the management to pump the leachate from the holding ponds to the neighboring Pestoni vineyard. Leachate water could not be discharged to the creek so we were instructed to pump the leachate from the pond at Upper Valley Disposal Service the Trash, Recycling and Compost company to the same family owned vineyards on the neighboring property, Pestoni Family Vineyards. We pumped 93,300 gallons of leachate into the vineyards. As I understand, this was a standard practice for Upper Valley Disposal Service for many previous years. This property is in the Bale Slough area and a flood plain so the contamination spreads out and gets into the floodplain, local waterways and flows into the Napa River. Including high water table.
I have also submitted these concerns to CalRecylcle, Peter Ex from the Local Enforcement Agency, the Napa County Board of Supervisors, mayors of Calistoga, St. Helena and Yountville, all three cities that contract with UVDS/CFL through the Upper Valley Waste Management Agency-JPA.
I hope you will read the materials and recognize the severity of this situation by reading through the facts in the enclosed material and attached documents.
Recycling and Disposal Reporting System Entity and Cal-OSHA