Yesterday, the storied Arcata Community Recycling Center announced that it would be going out of business come January. Today comes news that simultaneously, or on its way out the door, it filed a pretty hardcore lawsuit against its recent antagonist, the Humboldt Waste Management Authority.

The suit — which alleges “civil rights violations, taking property without just compensation, interference with prospective economic advantage, negligent and intentional misrepresentation, misappropriation of trade secrets, and improper award of public contract” — was first reported by the online agency Courthouse News Service. After a couple of hours of confusion, ACRC Board Chair Milt Boyd confirmed it to the Lost Coast Outpost this afternoon.

A PDF of the complaint can be found here.

When the LoCO first contacted Boyd this morning, he said that the Courthouse News Service post was in error. Minutes ago, he called back with a correction: “I knew it was coming but I didn’t think it was going to be happening quite this fast,” he said.

The suit appears to be substantially similar to one that the Center threatened to file back in April, but later withdrew. It alleges that the Waste Management Authority revealed the ACRC’s trade secrets to a competitor — Solid Waste of Willits — in order to undercut the center’s later bid for the county’s recycling contract. When the contract later went out for bids, Willits came back with number substantially lower than the ACRC’s; Willits offered to pay the county for its recyclables, where Arcata wanted to charge the county $65 per ton.

The lawsuit states that the purpose of this was to pressure the ACRC into giving up its new sorting facility on the Samoa Peninsula, which the HWMA allegedly covets. In his conversation with the Lost Coast Outpost this morning, Boyd echoed the allegation.

“The HWMA looked at the facility two or three years ago, and said ‘We’d like to own that,” Boyd said.

Prior to his knowledge of the lawsuit having been filed, Boyd said this morning that the ACRC January closure announced yesterday did not mean that the center would be filing for bankruptcy. When asked how the organization would continue to make payments on its large bond debt, he said that he did not know the answer to that. 

“This is all in a great state of flux at this moment, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.