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u IN 21390 Johnson Road PO Box 784 v�;`y e0Q'? Clements CA 95227 San Joaquin County Community Development Department M1/ Development Services Division 1810 East Hazelton Avenue Stockton CA 95205 February 14,2003 Re: Application#PA0300014(SA) Gentlemen: I wish to raise my voice in loud protest over this proposal. My primary residence—and that of my family—is two adjacent 20 acre agricultural propertied situated directly west of this proposed site. Despite our proximity (two lots away) we received no official notification of this project. This seems to ne the experience of most neighbors with whom I have discussed this matter, and it would appear that County procedures for giving adequate notice to the owners of rural properties in close proximity to such applications are inadequate. I raise the following objections: 1. Large quantities of urban yard refused being trucked to this site for composting would carry substantial and uncontrolled residues of urban pesticides, fertilizers, and other home and garden chemicals. The process of composting and natural decomposition would concentrate these materials and leach them down into the local water table,thus contaminating the wells that provide drinking water to my family as well as my livestock, as well as the runoff into local reservoirs and the Mokelumne River. As a practicing physician whose specific professional role is the care of cancer patients, I have been struck since arriving in San Joaquin County by the epidemiological excess incidence of uncommon cancers and cancers occurring at unusually young ages among residents of this County. It would be my medical observation that such epidemiological anomalies are frequently caused by exposure to r agricultural chemicals and pesticides,and both as a professional and as a homeowner I am unalterably opposed to circumstances—such as this proposal—that would substantially increase the environmental risk to my own family and livestock. 2. Use of this land as a damp for urban refuse would increase traffic on Johnson Road, the single access road to the property in question. Driven west from Highway 12, Johnson Road is a sequence of blind curves and hairpin turns with poor visibility,narrow shoulders and some areas of dropoff. It has been poorly maintained and is potholed. Driven east from Acampo Road, Johnson Road drops rapidly where Bear Creek crosses the road.This is flooded frequently during the Winter and Spring,and in our experience this dip has proved impassable for most large vehicles approaching our property from that side. Stagnant watershed running off the proposed project would prolong and intensify the periods of flooding at the site.The road is deemed sufficiently unsafe by Lodi Unified School District that school buses are not allowed onto Johnson Road to pick up or drop off our children. This proposal would increase traffic by vehicles of a size and weight for which these routes were neither designed nor maintained.This would be a significant and unconscionable public safety hazard to our children and to our livestock. 3. Our agricultural operation is dedicated to the breeding and raining of quarter horses and Shetland ponies. It is our belief that the increase in road traffic, and the inevitable noises and smells inherent in the operation of a dump site, would so negatively influence the local environment as to disrupt the normal exusfoaling cyc tysof oanimals. stwould cause irreparable damage as our ability tbreeding, eecte the businesssplan for thsopeatonand rsultin substantial financial losand wasting of assets.