Dairy farm situated across from the Hinkley store and just down the street from the Hinkley Elementary School
In recent weeks we have been exploring the environmental movement in California in general and one company’s attempt to build a green project in San Bernardino County specifically. As I have researched the issues surrounding the compost facility Nursery Products LLC has proposed to build in a remote desert location eight miles west of Hinkley, I am left wondering why anyone wants to do business in county of San Bernardino or the state of California.
Entrepreneurship in California seems to be a four-letter word. Businessmen are at the mercy of far-reaching, overstepping regulations and zealous regulators as well as environmental wackos and other fringe groups. But what is particularly odd in this case is that the project proposed is a green, good-for-the-environment type of project yet it is the environmental do-gooders who have been the biggest and most vocal opponents. We have learned that the only “green” environmentalists care about is that found in a Benjamin.
McCarthy Farms is a international company that currently operates an open-air composting site within a farming community in the Bakersfield area. McCarthy stands to lose the most if a facility is built in San Bernardino County because our cities are currently forced to transport their biosolids to Bakersfield or Arizona at a cost considerably higher than if there was a facility located within the county. In other words, McCarthy currently has a near monopoly in the acceptance of biosolids in this area.
We have already discussed HelpHinkley.org‘s Norm Diaz’s role in McCarthy Farm’s scheme to prevent competition and extort competitors into bankruptcy, but Norm is only the front man. The local brains behind the plot is known as “Barstow Steve Smith.” Smith is said to be the one who recruited Diaz and others to form opposition to the composting site eight miles from their homes in Hinkley and Barstow.
Smith’s ties to the extortionist environmental movement run deeper than his Hinkley counterparts. Among his very close “friends” is Maureen Reilly, a Canadian “environmentalist” who has taken an interest in HelpHinkey.org and especially in Barstow Steve Smith. When she is not spending her time with Smith at his Barstow residence, she is director of Toronto-based Sludge Watch, an on-line forum for everything sludge.
Reilly has a thing about land application of biosolids. She has worked diligently for a decade or more to eliminate the process in both North America and Europe. Reilly is truly consumed by human waste. To read her ramblings in her blog, which has over 3500 entries on the subject, one has to think she lives, breaths, and sleeps sludge.
However, for some strange reason, Reilly hasn’t opposed McCarthy’s open-air composting facility in the middle of Bakersfield. Yet that facility does exactly what Nursery Products will be doing, except it is within view of the local community.
Perhaps that is because Smith’s and Diaz’s claims that the biosolids and compost are going to blow through the High Desert because of all the wind in the area are false and she knows it. There are a lot of studies that there is no documented fact of any health issues of biosolids compost even if it did blow through the desert. The studies state that there is zero risk to human health as close as 50 feet from the property border of compost sites.
To put this into perspective, what does the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District require of construction companies when they are digging to suppress dust? They require that the contractor spray water on the exposed soil to prevent it from blowing away. What is biosolids compost? It is 40 percent water. It needs to be moist. It’s the perfect dust suppressant. The compost will REDUCE dust, not create it.
Interestingly enough, not only is Reilly not an opponent of McCarthy’s open-air composting site, she is a proponent of McCarthy Farms’ venture into Canada. Liberty Energy, which is owned by McCarthy Farms, is proposing to construct 19 energy-from-waste facilities in the province of Ontario. Liberty has been fully permitted for at least one of these facilities but will not build it until they can achieve a near monopoly for receiving the area’s biosolids. They will be charging local jurisdictions a tipping fee of course. Sound familiar? Of course it does. That is exactly what is happening to San Bernardino County’s cities.
Fortunately, our Board of Supervisors saw through the false claims of Diaz, Smith, Reilly and others. The project was approved and construction should start soon. This project will be good for our whole county.
It is interesting in a blog that in one post passionately espouses that Bill Postmus is innocent until proven guilty then posts half baked theories and allegations with out any backing of proof.
Now I am the brains behind everything or is it Norm Diaz, maybe McCarthy farms or Maureen Reilly I wonder who is going to be the master mind next?
What did Norm do with the $85,000 in his bank and what do all my neighbors think about “donating” to help save us? Norm you should be ashamed!
I thought Maureen “the sludge queen” and Steve Smith were a couple? Maureen has gone on record supporting McCarthy many times and is even a representative at public meetings. Steve you better get away from her if he can to keep your squeeky clean message around town in Barstow?
Steve, in previous posting on the desert dispatch last year, I posted that it appeared that you were very good friends with Maureen Riley. You use the same terms she does in her postings mainly NP is a “bad actor”! You never denied that you do know her. Why don’t you or her object to McCarthy Farms? If you are truly innocent in all of this, and not getting paid, I dare you and Maureen to start a campaign against McCarthy! If what you state is true about biosolids blowing hundreds of miles you should also be worried about McCarthy’s site in Bakersfield.
Steve, its soon to be your time in court, I hope you do know that these allegations, if found to be true in a court of law, come with some serious penalties! Bubba in cell # 203 is waiting for his new “friend”!
No one else has been accused of being the “brains” behind everything. Its always been you, Norm and Maureen. I know you would, now, hope that it could be palmed off on somebody else, the money, at the start, is fantastic isn’t it Steve, and then it gets all too real. You know the best part of all this, Pat McCarthy, walks away, still very wealthy, and you are left to face the music! Seems that your employer is screwing you guys just a little!! Maybe you will be able to think about Pat on his yacht sailing down to Mexico whislt you’re doing 10 years! Doesn’t seem fair at all if you ask me Steve!
I agree the project is good for the county and yes the supervisors did make a good decision.
I really don’t think that Mr. Smith is going to jail it seems pointless, futile, and a little vindictive.
I agree with Scott, the county did make a great decision with this project, we need a lot more green projects like this. But if Mr. Smith did take money, “under the table”, this breaks many laws that we have in place to protect us from cases such as these. If a judge can send Martha Stewart to jail for “insider trading”, and boy was that decision based on flimsy circumstantial evidence, then if this case does get into a court, Mr. Smith watch out! He could in fact find himself in jail. And why not? Its people like this that slow our economy down and hinder good environmental projects for their own selfless greed! If you do indeed commit the crime, you better be ok with serving the time!
Why does Norm never post? He never defends himself, its always Barstow Steve Smith that responds on his behalf. It does appear that Norm is the puppet and Smith is pulling his strings! Do you wipe his bottom to Steve?