Why Does Sonoma County Need an Asphalt Plant in Petaluma?
Asphalt must be delivered hot, shortly after it is produced in order to spread it, roll it, and for the asphalt to properly bond and cure for pavement. Asphalt is a heavy material. Trucking asphalt longer distances increases costs and environmental impacts—including greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion. It is therefore important to have a local source of asphalt for projects like the recently-approved Caltrans Marin-Sonoma Narrows project for widening Highway 101, as well as County and municipal public works projects.
The Petaluma area has had an asphalt plant for more than 20 years. Dutra Materials operated an asphalt plant at their former quarry site on the west side of Highway 101 and for the last three years at a temporary plant and barging offloading facility across the Petaluma River from the Sheraton Hotel. Dutra has operated these facilities in compliance with local agency and Bay Area Air Quality Management District permit requirements and as a good neighbor to residential, commercial and other industrial users.
The new plant at Haystack Landing will enable Dutra Materials to continue serving the needs of southern Sonoma County by replacing these older asphalt, aggregate distribution and barge offloading facilities with state-of-the-art, efficient operations that reduce environmental impacts and enhance esthetics.
Over 80% of the aggregate and asphalt that leaves the Dutra Materials plant will be used for publicly funded road and infrastructure projects either for the County of Sonoma, the City of Petaluma, Caltrans or other government agencies.
Sonoma and Marin voters overwhelmingly supported sales tax measures in November 2008 to fund significant highway and local road projects. The cost to truck asphalt from other communities would add an additional $5 – 6 per ton to the cost of road construction if Petaluma did not have a local asphalt plant. The Petaluma area uses approximately 500,000 tons of aggregate every year which means taxpayers would have to pay $2.5 million or more per year in additional trucking costs without the Dutra plant.
Haystack Landing Project Community Benefits
Petaluma Asphalt Plant Reduces Traffic & Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions
- Location next to Highway 101 eliminates need for truck traffic on local streets
- Petaluma River access allows barge operations to take over 21,000 trucks per year off Highway 101 and reduce GHG emissions
- Local source of asphalt reduces truck traffic on Highway 101 involved in bringing asphalt from other communities to southern Sonoma County and reduces Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions
With Plant: 535 metric tonnes of CO2e per 100,000 tons of asphalt delivered for the widening of Highway 101 between Petaluma and Novato at the county line.
Without Plant: 1331 metric tonnes of CO2e per 100,000 tons of asphalt delivered for the widening of Highway 101 between Petaluma and Novato at the county line.
Graph shows amount of greenhouse gas emissions (in CO2e) per 100,000 tons of asphalt delivered to the county line.
Local Road & Highway Construction
- Local source of asphalt and aggregate saves Petaluma taxpayers $2.5 million annually on road construction by eliminating trucking costs to deliver from remote locations
- Allows Sonoma County and cities including Petaluma to maximize funds available for implementing voter approved road and highway construction such as the Marin-Sonoma
- Narrows widening project
- Supports 1,000 living wage construction jobs of local construction companies. A local source of asphalt will reduce road construction costs enabling cities, counties and other local governments to use the millions of dollars it would have spent trucking materials into the south Sonoma County area on more road construction and maintenance projects. More local road construction and maintenance projects will translate to more work for local construction companies who combined employ over 1,000 living wage jobs. The Haystack Landing project would support these 1,000 local living wage construction jobs by being the local source of asphalt which can create more road work projects by saving millions of dollars on the cost of materials.
Environmental Enhancement & Petaluma River Dredging
- Haystack Landing Asphalt Plant dedicates and enhances 19 acres of wetlands habitat (50% of site)
- Continues historic riverfront industrial uses and provides future river traffic needed to ensure continued funding by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the Petaluma River
- Provides local barged source of rock in case of earthquakes or other natural disasters for road or levee repairs
New Plant Technology Ensures Long Term Community Resources
- Replaces older plant from quarry property with state-of-the-art plant, latest best practices plant controls, sound walls, fully contained asphalt production process and fully enclosed conveyor systems resulting in efficient operations, reduce impacts and enhance esthetics
- Provides new location for San Antonio Volunteer Fire Department
Dutra plant supports Sonoma County’s goals for reducing Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Having a local source of asphalt and aggregate in southern Sonoma County reduces GHG emissions by eliminating the need to truck aggregate and asphalt from remote communities and Santa Rosa which keeps hundreds of trucks per day off of Highway 101 and Highway 116
- The barging operations will reduce traffic and GHG emissions by removing over 80 trucks per day—which equates to over 21,000 trucks per year otherwise needed to deliver material to the project —from Highway 101
