Residents worried about floodwaters reaching Tulare Lake Compost facility

KINGS COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Concerns have been growing for neighbors of a compost facility in Kings County as floodwaters fill the Tulare Lake Basin.

Tulare Lake is back and is expected to grow with all the snowmelt in the coming weeks.

"I worry about the snowmelt coming below the dams because you can't control that, and we have a lot of good people working together, and we have to stick together and help each other out," said Doug Verboom, District 3 Supervisor.

Verboon says officials are worried about the possibility of the water reaching the Tulare Lake Compost Facility near Kettleman City.

The Los Angeles County Sanitation District owns it and they let us in on Wednesday to see what they're doing to prepare for floodwaters.

Bryan Langpap works for the Sanitation District.

He says it will take a lot of water to reach their operation, which is surrounded by about 14,000 acres of land that they use for farming.

"Most of our farmland is at an elevation, but when we built the compost facility, we purposely built it 5 feet above the surrounding land," explained Langpap.

There is also a levee between the Tulare Lake bottom and the property surrounding the facility.

The Sanitation District has already allowed to the county to pump some water onto their farmland -- and say they're ready for more.

Any water they receive will stay and will be used in their farming operation.

"Even if water were to get over the South Central levee, it would have to create a big lake over here, so with that added protection, we feel like we are in a good position," Langpap said.

Langpap also explained that before compost comes to the facility, it's already received 15 days of pre-treatment in Los Angeles County.

Once it arrives, it's kept indoors until it can be cooked it at high temperatures to kill any remaining bacteria and viruses.

The piles you see outside are already safe to be used - the only microbes that remain are those found in soil - which make the material in the piles more nutrient-rich.

To be safe, they're now receiving less material.

"One of the extra precautions is to ramp down the material we bring into the site, so we already cut that in half and next week we will not bring any new material," Langpap said.

Officials are also working with the Regional Water Quality Control Board to closely monitor groundwater and surface water.

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