Holloway’s open pit gypsum mine, located at Lost Hills, California, has existed for over eighty five (85) years, and is owned and operated by The Holloway Group. Decades of mining operations has produced open pits, creating several large depressions or natural receptacles between forty-five (45) and fifty-five (55) feet deep, each comprising a combined area of 331 acres.

Lost Hills Environmental LLC is a Class III non-hazardous Industrial Waste Landfill facility (the “Holloway Landfill”) which is an affiliate company of Holloway Environmental Solutions LLC, our waste management entity. The existing Holloway Landfill operates under an approved Conditional Use Permit (CUP) 9, Map 28, a Waste Discharge Requirements (WDRs) Order No. 97-078, and a Solid Waste Facility Permit (SWIS 15-AA-0308-010-A) issued by the Lead Enforcement Agency (LEA) (Kern County Environmental Health Services Division), which allows for a Class III non-hazardous waste landfill to be located within the depleted surface mine or pits within the identified landfill facility.

The backfilling of the first pits created from the mining of gypsum began in 1993 with the limited disposal of inert waste streams. The Holloway Landfill is currently allowed to conduct disposal activities on four (4) contiguous “pit areas” known as Pits E, F, G and the Pit F/G Connection Area, by backfilling them with alternating equal lifts or a blend of approved imported non-hazardous waste streams and native soils, for a maximum daily import rate of 2,000 tons/day. This operation is presently a non-classified disposal site for a limited number of approved non-hazardous industrial waste  streams. This is not a public landfill facility.

Due to Holloway’s extensive mining operations, more than 5 million cubic yards of native over- burden soil has been strategically stockpiled around all depleted mine pits for the potential use in existing and future landfill operations as daily cover and closure/post-closure requirements. This is an abundance not commonly found with most landfills. The depleted pits are essentially very fine disposal receptacles that were prepared by the gypsum mining operations. Subsequent site characterization studies completed for each pit area indicated a composition for the pit floors and walls that consists of 25 to 60 consecutive feet calcite-flocculated or cemented, very low permeability clays and clay-rich silt.

The SWFP footprint and its surrounding area have a total vertical section of 125 to 350 feet of such geology, making these approved disposal pits essentially natural clay vaults. Because of the dynamics of past mining activity, another +700 acres of open pit area exist for future permitted landfill operations, a figure that is continually increasing along with the stockpiled overburden soil.

July 12, 2017 Holloway applied for, and is in the process of, amending the following: 1) the landfill CUP to incorporate a vertical cap expansion from 6’ to 25’ on all waste pits, 2) taking in additional waste streams, and 3) construction and operation of a composting facility. Currently, Holloway is in the process of amending the facility EIR and developing the amendments to required environmental documents. The process is estimated to take approximately 24 months and we anticipate opening the facility in 2019.