Despite Ruling, Pentagon Won’t Take SOS Waste

The Defense Department’s top environmental officer said Monday that the Pentagon still is unwilling to accept explosive waste from Space Ordnance Systems, despite rejection by a local agency of the defense contractor’s alternative plan to burn the material in the desert in northeastern Los Angeles County.

Carl J. Schafer Jr., director of environmental policy for the Defense Department, said the military itself would face permit problems and public opposition if it took the waste. Such a move also would open the door to similar requests from other defense contractors, he said.

“The precedent at stake is such that it could make DOD a national dumping ground,” Schafer said in an interview. “It’s not as if we don’t have problems of our own,” he said, referring to mounting public criticism of toxic-waste problems at military bases.

Meeting May Not Help

If the wastes were hauled to a distant military installation, such as the Hawthorne Army Ammunition Plant in Nevada, Shafer asked, “What am I supposed to say to the governor of Nevada? ‘Greetings from California’?”

Schafer, who supports the open-burning plan rejected last month by a South Coast Air Quality Management District hearing board, is scheduled to meet with air-district officials this morning at district headquarters in El Monte. It will be the first meeting between representatives of the two agencies, despite a monthslong stalemate over which should use its emergency procedures to help get rid of the waste.

But the meeting may do little to resolve the issue, because each agency continues to suggest that the answer lies with the other.

150 Workers Idled

With no solution in sight, Space Ordnance Systems, or SOS, agreed two weeks ago to suspend the operation that produces the waste, a decision that has idled more than 150 workers.

The air-quality district hearing board rejected the request for an open-burning variance on April 10, but is scheduled to consider on May 28 a second SOS application. The company, which wants to burn the waste at a leased site 25 miles east of Lancaster, says it would need about 80 days of favorable weather to complete the job.

Despite a lack of required permits, SOS, a division of TransTechnology Corp. of Sherman Oaks, is storing more than 1,800 drums of explosive wastes at its two manufacturing plants in the Santa Clarita Valley. SOS manufactures decoy flares and other explosive devices for the military.

Can’t Find Willing Dump

The company, which has been accumulating the waste since 1983, says it has been unable to find a commercial dump to take the material. So SOS appealed for help from the Defense Department-- which formerly took contractor waste--and also from the air district.

The Defense Department is not alone in worrying about creating a precedent.

The variance request has been bitterly opposed by residents of the high desert area who fear that the temporary burn site, if approved, would soon become permanent. SOS intends to build an explosive-waste incinerator but has not named a site.

‘No Alternative’

Air-quality district officials also have voiced concern that if they approved a request involving such a large amount of waste they would be unable to turn down smaller requests.

On April 10, when the first variance request was denied, hearing board Chairwoman Coralie Kupfer said she hoped the decision would convince the Pentagon that there is “no alternative” to military disposal.

Under a Defense Department policy adopted in 1980 and written into law last year, the Pentagon can take contractor-generated waste only if there is no alternative “feasible means of disposal.” Schafer said, however, that he believes the military has never taken contractor waste since the policy was adopted.

Test-Flight Concerns

Pentagon officials did not appear at the first variance hearing to explain their position. But, adding a note of confusion to the proceeding, Air Force officials from Edwards Air Force Base appeared at the hearing to oppose the burn, saying they feared the smoke would interfere with test flights.

At one point, Kupfer remarked icily, “As I understand, the Air Force does have some association with the Department of Defense.”

Schafer said he hopes the meeting will clarify the department’s stand and convince air-district officials “that our feeling about the precedent is sincere and well-founded . . .”

‘Rational Position’

“We don’t like to be the black hat, you know, the bad guys,” Schafer said. “I think we have a rational position.”

Schafer also said he had patched up differences between Edwards Air Force Base and the Defense Department. “We are on the same wavelength, no problem,” Schafer said.

He said he had convinced Air Force officials that the burning “would be in very short segments (and) only during correct meteorological conditions . . . They think they can live with it.”