The Newby Island Landfill (NISL) is one of the largest active

landfill A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the wast ...

s on the shores of the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water f ...

. It is located in

Santa Clara County Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County together ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. The site is located within the city limits of

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

at the western terminus of Dixon Landing Road. The address is 1601 Dixon Landing Road, Milpitas. Although the address and public street access to the site are both in the City of Milpitas, the landfill property is entirely within the City of San Jose. Newby Island Landfill has a length of . It is located West of the City of

Milpitas Milpitas (Spanish for "little milpas") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in Silicon Valley. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 80,273. The city's origins lie in Rancho Milpitas, granted to Californio ranchero José Mar� ...

near Dixon Landing Road and Interstate 880. It is the terminus for waste for all of San Jose (62%), Santa Clara (14%), Milpitas (10%), Cupertino (5%), Los Altos (2%) and other cities (7%). The 342-acre (138.4 ha) pile is currently permitted to operate until 2041 and may extend up to 245 feet. The landfill is an island surrounded by a

levee A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually earthen and that often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastli ...

which keeps its

runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock marke ...

from directly entering the bay, and the water that drains from it is treated in the landfill's own

treatment plant Water treatment is any process that improves the Water quality, quality of water to make it appropriate for a specific end-use. The end use may be drinking water, drinking, industrial water supply, irrigation, river flow maintenance, water recrea ...

Electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describe ...

for the landfill is generated by burning the

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane ...

collected from the decomposition of the waste. Dried sewage sludge from the nearby San José–Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility is the material used as cover, mixed in with the trash, blending San Jose's waste streams. It is operated by

Republic Services Republic Services is an American waste disposal company whose services include non-hazardous solid waste collection, waste transfer, waste disposal, recycling, and energy services. It is the second largest provider of waste disposal in the Unite ...

(Republic), which, along with Waste Management Incorporated, transports and disposes of most of the household trash in the United States. Materials that pass through the gate of NISL include waste that is disposed in the landfill; clean soil that is used for cover and for temporary roadways; construction and demolition (C&D) debris that is sorted, recycled, and processed for re-use both on-site and elsewhere; and materials that are used for alternative daily cover (ADC), which include but are not limited to

biosolids Biosolids are solid organic matter recovered from a sewage treatment process and used as fertilizer. In the past, it was common for farmers to use animal manure to improve their soil fertility. In the 1920s, the farming community began also to use ...

, processed C&D debris, contaminated soil, green waste, and organic material from the on-site composting operations. In addition to C&D waste, bulky recyclables including appliances,

tire A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a Rim (wheel), wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide Traction (engineering), t ...

carpet A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon, or polyester ...

, and

cardboard Cardboard is a generic term for heavy paper-based products. The construction can range from a thick paper known as paperboard to corrugated fiberboard which is made of multiple plies of material. Natural cardboards can range from grey to light b ...

are sent to NISL and either are recycled or diverted for beneficial use. Incoming organics received at the landfill are processed (i.e.,ground) and utilized as mulch for erosion control on-site and alternative daily cover or are sent off-site to be used as biofuel, for erosion control, or as a soil additive. The entire site is now called the Newby Island Resource Recovery Park. The site includes both the Newby Island Landfill and the Recyclery.

History

The Newby Island landfill opened in 1938. It operated as an open burning dump until 1956 when it became a landfill. In 1956, the San Jose Scavenger Company started the landfill operations. In 1968, it was annexed into the city of San Jose as a non-conforming zone. In 1973,

Browning-Ferris Industries Browning-Ferris Industries was a North American waste management company that was bought out in 1999. History BFI was founded in Houston, Texas. The company was initially known as American Refuse Systems, and it opened its first landfill in 1968 ...

(BFI) of Northern California began operation of this site late in 1973. In 1981, a 166-acre (67 ha) expansion was approved, making Newby Island Landfill the largest landfill in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1994, composting operations started on the Newby site. Later a settlement agreement between the City of Milpitas, City of San Jose, Browning-Ferris Industries, and the International Disposal Company of California resulted in some odor mitigation strategies, such as relocation of the composting area to the westernmost section of the landfill to reduce the odor impact. In 1999, BFI was sold to Allied Industries. In 2007, a height expansion was proposed and approved by San Jose in 2012. In 2008, Allied Waste was acquired by

Group based in Florida. In August 2012, Republic Services announced the Newby Island Resource Recovery Park located on the same site, the world's largest recycling operation. It processes up to per hour of multiple waste streams. The facility will process all of the commercial waste generated by businesses in San Jose. Newby Island houses the local hauling company, recyclery, composting facility and landfill. In 2014, Allied Waste submitted a permit to increase the capacity enough to hold 245 towering feet msl of trash from the current allowed height of . The capacity would increase from 50.8 million cubic yards (38.8 million cubic meters) to 65.9 million cubic yards (50.38 million cubic meters). The new closure date would be 2041. Despite appeals and protests from the City of Milpitas and its citizens, the permit was approved by the San Jose Planning commission on December 7, 2016. In 2016, Republic Services settled a class-action lawsuit over the alleged landfill odor pollution. Republic will create a $1.2 million fund to be paid to households within a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) radius from the landfill. In addition, Republic agreed to provide $2 million to mitigate odors over the next five years. Odor mitigation will include updating the gas collection system and also modifying the composting operation to use forced air static piles. Also in 2016, Newby Island landfill started the South Bay Odor Stakeholders Group to bring together various agencies and facilities producing odor. Although they are holding meetings, it is too early to see if they will be able to make a difference in the odor pollution issues in the area. Many agencies and facilities are refusing to attend the meeting. Also the group doesn't have any enforcement powers. Also in 2016, the City of Milpitas decided against using Newby Island Landfill for solid waste disposal. Milpitas also decided not to select Republic Services (the owner of the Newby island facility) to do garbage collections. Residents worried that the Milpitas City Council might allow whoever was awarded the collection contract to take the city's garbage to Newby Island drafted Measure L for the Nov 2016 ballot. Mipitas voters overwhelmingly supported sending the city's garbage to a different landfill owned by Waste Management, Kirby Canyon Landfill. Garden City Sanitation was selected as the new waste collector. This ended Republic's long contract with the City of Milpitas for both garbage collections and disposal.

References

External links

CalRecycle Page on the Newby Island Site
{{coord, 37.458916, -121.944038, display=title
Republic Services site about Newby

Milpitas Odor Information
Landfills in the United States Landfills in California Geography of San Jose, California Landforms of Santa Clara County, California Environment of the San Francisco Bay Area