State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, said Tuesday he hopes the Kern County Board of Supervisors appeals a
judge’s recent overturning of Measure E. And he said he hopes to meet with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa to see if the issue can be settled without further court action.
Voter-approved Measure E bans the spreading of treated sewage sludge on farmland in unincorporated Kern
County.
Florez said the judge who overturned the ban, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess, is in Los Angeles and was
unlikely to rule against his home city.
“It’s a repeat of the judge’s decision back in November,” he said. “At the end of the day, we need to be in a
neutral court.”
He said the county would likely fare better in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has a history of
being environmentally friendly.
“They don’t mind stepping in the way of government to do the right thing,” he said.
Read the court ruling
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Senator blasts L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa for
dumping sewage on rural neighbors
SoCal judge concedes environmental risk of land application but overturns ban
BAKERSFIELD – Senator Dean Florez, D-Shafter, will hold a news conference this afternoon in Bakersfield
over a judge’s decision to overturn an initiative passed overwhelmingly by Kern County voters last year to ban
the land application of sewage sludge and protect the public health.
Measure E, passed last June with the support of more than 83 percent of Kern County voters, would have
stopped Southern California communities from continuing to truck in and dump hundreds of thousands of tons
of treated sewage, or “biosolids,” on Kern fields each year.
Florez has repeatedly called on Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to live up to his self-professed “green
credentials” and believes his failure to negotiate in good faith for an alternative to dumping is a failure to
demonstrate social responsibility toward his neighbors, who lag far behind behemoth Los Angeles in legal
resources to fight sludge dumping. Today he will once again call on Villaraigosa to meet with his neighbors to
consider alternatives, such as a recent proposal to inject sewage sludge into depleted oil and gas reservoirs
deep underground in Southern California.
Florez, who believes yesterday’s ruling puts Kern County residents at unnecessary risk for the convenience of
their urban neighbors to the south, will push for a full defense of Measure E and a change of venue to the 9th
District Court of Appeals. Florez does not believe the issue can get fair consideration in Los Angeles, which
trucks 99 percent of treated human and industrial waste from its nearly 4 million residents to Kern.
Despite conceding in his final ruling that Kern County residents have legitimate environmental concerns about
the land application of treated human waste on fields above the groundwater table, U.S. District Court Judge
Gary Allen Feess ruled that Measure E “discriminated” against Los Angeles because it did not also apply to all
of Kern County, and therefore violated the Constitution’s commerce clause.
Today’s news conference will be held at 1 p.m. in Senator Florez’s district office, located at 1800 30th Street,
Suite 350.
** MEDIA ADVISORY *** MEDIA ADVISORY *** MEDIA ADVISORY **
WHO: Senator Dean Florez, D-Shafter
WHAT: News conference on ruling overturning Measure E
WHEN: TODAY! Tuesday, August 14, 2007
1:00 p.m.
WHERE: Bakersfield District Office of Senator Dean Florez
1800 30th Street, Suite 350