State Senate Kills Proposals on Garbage

The state Senate Monday killed two proposals that critics charged were special favors to garbage firms in Orange and Sonoma counties.

Critics also said the proposals would “abrogate local control” over the size and location of commercial refuse establishments.

Both proposals--which had been added in recent weeks to a bill by Assemblyman Elihu Harris (D-Oakland)--dealt with so-called garbage transfer stations, where trash is compacted, sorted and loaded into trucks before being transported to landfills.

The amended legislation, which originally dealt with pollution standards for trash-burning plants and for plants generating electricity, had touched off an intense campaign by lobbyists for local government.

One of the proposals would have eliminated a state law that local refuse management agencies could not approve new transfer stations without first determining that they conform with community planning guidelines.

The other proposal would have weakened licensing standards for transfer stations, saying that a garbage storage area need be licensed only if more than 200 cubic yards of trash--six to eight fully loaded, full-sized garbage trucks--was stored at a site for more than 48 hours.

The latter provision angered Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who had complained to an enforcement agency that refuse handling at an El Toro storage lot run by the Dewey Disposal Co. was an eyesore. The company is a subsidiary of Waste Management Inc., an Illinois firm.

Although the agency did not cite the firm, it had been pressuring the company’s owners to reduce the number of garbage bins it stored, contending that the firm was operating a “transfer station equivalent.”

If officials were stripped of that power, as the legislation urged, the local refuse management agency would no longer be able to force Dewey to clean up its lot, according to Victor Pottorff, lobbyist for the County Supervisors Assn. of California.

The two amendments were stripped from Harris’ bill on a 38-0 vote at the urging of state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and state Sen. Milton Marks (R-San Francisco), who was floor manager for the measure.