Earthworks Industries Inc. (“Company”) hereby provides an update on its Cortina integrated waste management project (“Project”) in Colusa County, California. The Project is being developed through the Company’s wholly owned U.S. subsidiary Cortina Integrated Waste Management Inc. (CIWM).
CIWM has a federally approved lease of 443 acres of the Kletsel Dehe Nation’s (“Tribe”) rancheria for the Project, which includes a Class III Municipal Waste Landfill, Material Recovery Facility, Composting Facility, and Soil Bioremediation.
CIWM has been working in conjunction with the Tribe’s regulatory agency, the Kletsel Environmental Regulatory Authority (“KERA”) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) on completion of federal Site Specific Flexibility Requests (SSFRs), which are related to design of the facility, and more specifically the landfill, and which are intended to customize the Project to the specific environmental attributes of the site.
The SSFR’s were previously approved by KERA’s predecessor tribal environmental agency, WEPA; however, at the request of the EPA, CIWM, thought it’s project Engineers, SCS Engineers, updated the submissions in late 2018 and 2019 to include EPA comments and to be compliant with current applicable regulations. The Project has been designed to comply with Federal, Tribal, or California regulations, whichever are strictest.
Once completed, the documents were forwarded to KERA for review by it and an independent consultant. After consultation and reviews with SCS and the independent consultants, KERA forwarded their comments to EPA for its review. These reviews involve the consideration of significant volumes of technical information. However, considering COVID implications and restrictions, the Company is pleased with the response times of the agencies.
EPA’s response, dated August 6, 2020, requested that the Company follow up with KERA regarding the final cover for the landfill.
Although KERA has expressed a preference for a type of final cover for the landfill and asked that we consider it, CIWM’s current cover design meets current federal and Tribal regulations. CIWM previously offered to defer to KERA when the cover is eventually required years from now with technology available then. CIWM will advise EPA of the results of our collaboration with KERA on this and any other matters when the SSFRs are finalized. We will of course be looking at and considering whether any changes would cause any timeline or financial impact on the development.
It is the intention of all parties to design the most environmentally friendly project that not only benefits the Tribe, local community and long-term waste needs, but also becomes a model facility for future waste handling.