Is the Dutra asphalt plant still coming to Petaluma?
Just south of Petaluma’s city limit, bordering the Petaluma River and its sensitive wetlands, lies the 38-acre Haystack Landing property, focus of a long and bitter fight over whether a company called Dutra Materials should be allowed to build an asphalt plant there.
For many local residents, who adamantly opposed the proposal and spent years organizing against it, the project has since faded away, with little to no action taken at the property. Facebook groups dissolved, community meetings ceased, and the once-ubiquitous “No Dutra” lawn signs were tossed out or stowed away.
But for the Dutra Group, the San Rafael parent company of the asphalt maker and aggregate supplier Dutra Materials, the plan to build an asphalt plant there is still a go.
One of the most disputed industrial projects in recent county history, it was approved on a 3-2 vote of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors 13 years ago before getting tangled up in the permitting process.
"This local source of asphalt production will restore our wetlands, bolster our climate resilience, and keep our economy moving for generations to come,“ reads a current Dutra website for the plant.
The company site bills the project as the “Haystack Landing Wetland Restoration,” and claims it will have “no wetland impacts.”
That claim is based on a 2019 revision to its original plan, with changes the company says will enhance the nearby Petaluma River area by incorporating “flood control, fire prevention, and preservation of a local source of construction materials to keep Sonoma County’s economy strong.”
Dutra’s revised plan also includes space for a new station for the San Antonio Volunteer Fire Department.
The revised project will “restore a mosaic of wetland habitats and biologic diversity commonly found in Bay fringe landscapes by regrading current non-wetland areas to support hydrologic conditions for the formation of seasonal wetlands,” Aimi Dutra, the company’s public relations director, wrote in an email to the Argus-Courier.
Dutra said the company’s proposal would create 3.11 acres of new wetlands, enhance another 11.87 acres of wetlands, construct a quarter-acre of landscaped berm, and carry out 8.43 acres of native plantings and invasive species control.
But local environmentalists, who have opposed the project for the nearly two decades since its initial proposal, are calling this new iteration of Dutra’s plan a “greenwashing campaign.”
“This is not the project that belongs on the Petaluma River,” said David Keller, a former Petaluma councilman and founder of the Petaluma River Council and board member of the Sacramento-based Planning and Conservation League.
But Aimi Dutra said the new asphalt plant would reduce “truck traffic, emissions and (greenhouse gases). It’s undisputed.”
“Dutra has protected and enhanced the wetlands and with the minor revision is now completely avoiding any impacts to wetlands,” she added. “That’s not greenwashing. That is a fact.”
Facts in dispute
Dutra’s first contention, of reducing emissions and greenhouse gases, stems from the proposed asphalt plant’s proximity to local building and street projects — which would theoretically reduce the number of miles asphalt would have to be hauled to those destinations.
Sonoma County recently announced plans to repair 50 miles of county-owned roads this summer as part of a $29 million program, leading to a projected increased demand for road-building material.
The second contention, that the asphalt plant would have no impacts on the Petaluma River or its wetlands, is harder to prove. And environmentalists including Keller and Joan Cooper, a spokesperson for Friends of Shollenberger, are renewing their call to reject the plant as a polluter and a danger to both wildlife and human health.
“You can’t have it both ways — you can’t be a polluter and an environmentalist,” said Cooper, who described asphalt production as a “highly toxic, dangerous activity.”
Asphalt can be produced a variety of ways, but it is generally recognized by scientists to be a source of emissions — including volatile organic compounds, particulate matter and carbon monoxide — that are harmful to human health and the environment.
A 2020 Science magazine article, for example, cites a Yale study suggesting that “fresh asphalt is a significant, yet overlooked, source of air pollution.”
Keller noted that the wetlands at Petaluma's Shollenberger Park and the Ellis Creek Trail have been included on the Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance, an international list of critical wetlands worth protecting. The marshland, he said, is a “national and international treasure.”
