70 acres of compost work, moving ahead in California

By Siam Sukkhee Trading Co., Ltd — 2026-08-18 — Waste360 (recycling/scrap)

I was looking at the updates from Ventura County this week. Turns out the Agromin-Limoneira expansion is actually happening.

Not stuck in some planning purgatory. Moving.

The composting facility in Santa Paula, California is being expanded from 15 acres to 70 acres, and according to Waste Today Magazine, the land has been cleared for the expansion on property that belongs to agribusiness firm Limoneira Company. That's the basic fact. The clearing is done. The machinery is moving dirt.

This matters because California's organic waste mandate—Senate Bill 1383—is real, and it's squeezing every jurisdiction to find capacity. Under SB 1383, jurisdictions must divert 75 percent of their organic waste from landfills and then compost and distribute the resulting materials. There simply isn't enough infrastructure yet. There aren't enough processing facilities to meet the demand, according to the facility operators.

When this thing gets going—actually, that's not quite right. Let me reframe. The timescale here is expected to begin operations in the second half of 2027. That's nearly a year and a half away still. But the facility will expand from the existing 15-acre green waste composting operation into a comprehensive organic recycling center capable of processing approximately 295,000 tons of organic waste annually. Per year. That's substantial volume for one location.

The joint venture structure is 50-50 between Limoneira and Agromin, which is smart. Neither party bears the full capital risk, and according to Agromin's own statement, the joint venture is expected to generate revenue in multiple ways including gate fees from waste haulers as they deliver green waste to the facility and the sale of compost from the recycled material. There's a business here, not just environmental compliance.

What struck me, reading through the reporting from BioCycle, is how long this took to permit. Bill Camarillo, Agromin's CEO, notes that going from green waste composting in an agricultural setting to obtaining a permit is as complicated as building a landfill. The facility's been operating since 2004. They're not new to this. Yet the expansion still required years of regulatory work. That's the friction nobody talks about. The site was cleared recently, yes, but the permission took over a decade.

Ventura County doesn't have a lot of composting options. The current facility is the only permitted commercial composting center in Ventura County. When this expands, it becomes more critical infrastructure for the whole region. That carries its own weight.

The work is progressing. The numbers work. The timeline is long.

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