Crisis Brews Over Toxic Dump Sites : Lawful Options Sought as Capacity of Waste Facilities Decreases in State

Casmalia: The word has become synonymous with “controversy” since the last remaining toxic landfill in Los Angeles County--the BKK dump in West Covina--was closed a year ago.

BKK was shut down after ground-water contamination was found under the dump and explosive levels of methane gas were discovered in nearby homes. When BKK was closed, many of the county’s most hazardous wastes were trucked to Casmalia in Santa Barbara County.

Now a new crisis could be brewing. The state Department of Health Services on Nov. 6 issued an order for operators of the Casmalia dump to stop accepting all liquid hazardous waste by Dec. 21 for at least four to six months, until corrective actions are taken to stem a possible threat to public health. Noxious fumes from the dump have been blamed for headaches and eye, nose and throat irritations of local residents and school children.

Casmalia and Kettleman Hills in the western San Joaquin Valley are the only hazardous-waste dumps serving Southern California that are designated Class 1, and Kettleman Hills was charged by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency with violating federal environmental safety laws.

(The owner, Chemical Waste Management, agreed last week to pay $4 million in penalties and corrective work for violating these laws.)

Class 1 dumps are those that can accept the broadest range of toxic chemicals. So without Casmalia, even on a temporary basis, and with limited capacity at Kettleman Hills, where will many of these dangerous wastes go?

Angelo Bellomo, chief of the Southern California section of the Toxic Substances Control Division of the state Department of Health Services, said, “As our capacity continues to decrease in this state, it becomes much more difficult to find existing lawful options.”

Yet, today the dangers of hazardous wastes are understood, and lawful options are more necessary than ever. (Radioactive waste, as from nuclear power plants and medicines, are regulated by separate laws and in terms of volume are “almost insignificant in relation to hazardous waste,” Kieran Bergin, a Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts engineer, explained.)

“Ten years ago, the drive was on production,” Frank D. Goss of Building System Evaluation Inc. of Sierra Madre, said. “If there was asbestos or other toxic waste on a site, many (generators) just dug a hole and buried it.”

‘No Good Regulations’

Nobody realized then how dangerous asbestos and other chemicals, like PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl), were. “In the ‘70s, PCB was thought of like motor oil,” Goss explained. “There were no good regulations on how to handle it. It looks innocent enough--just like vegetable oil, and it was used in various ways.”

In the early ‘70s, it was in a concoction spread on 10 miles of unpaved streets in Times Beach, Mo., to keep down the summer dust. Nobody knew then that the goo on the streets could cause sickness and death. Now Times Beach is a ghost town.

Ten years ago, few people knew that buried chemicals could seep through the soil and into the aquifer, contaminating ground water. The EPA conducted a study a few months ago of 48,000 community public water systems supplied by ground water and found that 20% contained detectable levels of man-made organic chemicals, although a much smaller percentage had contamination levels above those considered safe for consumption.

Water contamination is of special concern in Southern California because, as Bergin observed, “We live in a desert, and if we foul up our water, people will leave, then industry will leave. Economic effects on the region could be devastating.”

Illegal Disposal

This might sound melodramatic, but Bergin maintains that it could happen as lawful options for disposal of hazardous wastes are removed or made more difficult.

“History teaches us that if industry doesn’t have a legal way to dispose of these wastes, industry will do it illegally,” he said.

Massive clean-up jobs involving past toxic-waste mismanagement dot the country, and there are still cases of unethical contractors who illegally bury it or get rid of it in some other nefarious way. “There was a story in the news the other day about a guy who unloaded 600 bags of hazardous waste off a freeway in Oakland,” Goss said.

The potential harm to ground water, air and even children who might happen to find such bags or barrels isn’t hard to imagine.

“I know a way out of hell,” Bellomo likes to say about his ideas for managing toxic waste. “The way out of hell is the application of technology.

Treating Waste

“I’m talking about going from dumping waste in the ground to treating it, and only putting treatment residues and untreatable waste in a residual repository, a place for long-term storage,” he explained. “So if we could use the waste in the future, we could extract it from the ground, which would be lined. Waste would be placed in cells and kept dry and away from the rain.

“When we make that transition, we should have a network of treatment facilities and a regional repository.”

Some large manufacturers already treat their own toxic wastes through a myriad of options, including incineration, a de-watering process (“so you can come out to get it with a broom or a shovel instead of creating a dike and trying to keep it from percolating into the ground,” Bergin said), and a technique called “solidification” in which the toxic compound is chemically altered so that it can’t move.

There are also some solvent, precious metal and oil recyclers (such as gas stations that do oil changes).

Specialized Treatment

“But we need to go beyond the generic waste recyclers and see the design, construction and operation of commercial treatment facilities capable of handling a broad range of chemical waste,” Bellomo said. Unlike larger manufacturers, small ones usually don’t have the financial resources to set up their own treatment facilities.

In Los Angeles County, he figures one residual repository and 20 to 30 treatment facilities, each one specializing in one or more types of wastes, would do the job.

In addition, he sees a need for at least five transfer stations in Southern California.

“Those are where waste can be separated by generic type before being shuttled to treatment facilities. It’s much more economical for a transport service to pick up the waste, take it to a transfer station and combine and segregate it before transferring it to a facility that handles that waste stream,” he explained. “This is much more efficient for a small generator and households.”

Household Substances

Households? Bruce Howard, an attorney with Sidley & Austin in Century City, notes that there are “some very dangerous things, like rat or snail poisons, that, if disposed of commercially, would clearly be a hazardous waste that we would not want in a landfill, in a place that could be reached by a child or in ground water. Yet, they are all over people’s homes.”

Even so, he added, “Domestic hazardous wastes are generally not included in the federal hazardous waste regulatory system.”

This isn’t true of California law. “There are no exemptions in state law,” Bellomo said. “There is no lower limit of responsibility. The homeowner is responsible for seeing that his hazardous wastes--even a small bottleful--are disposed of. That’s why we’re seeing more and more of these one-day centers.

“We believe household hazardous wastes are a problem, and we’re encouraged by efforts (to take care of it) in Los Angeles city, Orange County, San Bernardino County and other places.”

Model Program

Typically, the one-day centers Bellomo mentioned are one-day collection points set up by local governments for area residents to take their toxic wastes, but San Bernardino County has gone a step further and may be used as a model for programs in other parts of the state and the nation.

Steve Van Stockum, who heads the county’s program, said, “We are the only ones in the country with a permanent collection site.”

In fact, the county has two permanent sites, at a fire station and the county’s Agriculture Department. “People can come in any time during the week and on Saturdays, too, at the fire station and leave their (household hazardous) wastes at no charge,” he added.

By the middle of next year, San Bernardino County regulators hope to have 15 permanent collection sites.

Types of Wastes

The sites are actually transfer stations, where the wastes are repackaged into 55-gallon drums and labeled before being hauled away to Kettleman Hills. County personnel provide the labor, and disposal costs are mainly financed by an $83,000 grant from the state Department of Water Resources and tipping fees (charged each time a garbage truck leaves a load at a county dump). “There is also some Environmental Protection Agency money available for this type of activity,” he said.

Among household wastes collected by the county are paints, solvents, drain cleaners, pesticides, fertilizers, weed killers and swimming pool chlorine.

“There are lots of things under the kitchen sink, in your garage and in your bathroom that would be eligible,” he said.

Individually, they may seem small, but collectively? “We estimate that there are over 600,000 gallons of household hazardous wastes in our county landfills.”

These could seep into the ground water, as well as nearby lakes, streams and bays. “And I believe 85% of our drinking water comes from the ground,” he noted.

Toxic wastes could be in containers that rupture, and then the liquids could squirt on people and cause injuries. “We estimate that 3% of our refuse collection workers are injured every year due to hazardous wastes,” he said.

Costly Enterprise

Wastes can cause fires, explosions and toxic gas.

“We’re also looking at ways to recycle or incinerate these wastes instead of burying them,” he added. For manufacturers, commercial treatment facilities in the county are another possibility. The county has none now, he said.

To build one, it would probably take an entrepreneur with a lot of courage, perseverance and financial backing. Los Angeles County’s Bergin figures that a facility could cost anywhere from $5 million to $75 million, depending on capabilities and size. Most plants would fit on five to 15 acres, he said.

From a businessman’s point of view, there are few if any immediate rewards, he continued, because there would be several years before revenues would be realized, and in the meantime, there could be a lot of grief. “There is so much legislative interest in this right now that the laws change every year,” he noted.

This year, there were about 70 new laws relating to hazardous wastes, he estimated, “so that doesn’t make for a stable business climate.”

Additional Sites

The subject is also a volatile one with politicians and residents alike. It brings out what has been called the NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) syndrome. “Just to look for sites is a politically bold move,” Bergin said, “but we’re going ahead and looking at three additional sites in the northern part of the county.”

Despite all the potential trouble, waste is a lucrative business, attorney Ai Woodward noted, “and somebody is going to jump into the hazardous-waste arena and handle it right.”

Something must be done, if not morally, then legally. As Bergin pointed out, “1984 changes in the federal law said, ‘Thou shalt not dispose of waste untreated’ over the next four to five years, and the state is also moving in that direction with its laws.”

The state is also moving ahead to consolidate several agencies into one to handle toxic-waste issues. Known as Gov. George Deukmejian’s Reorganization Plan 2, the proposal is making its way through the Legislature. “I think consolidation is a step in the right direction, but it will never preclude the need for close coordination between state, regional and local government,” Bellomo said.

“This hazardous-waste problem is not capable of being resolved by one super agency alone.”

‘Time for a Solution’

However, he is optimistic that it can be resolved.

“Maybe, just maybe, the temporary closing of Casmalia will be an incentive to site new treatment facilities and options,” he said. “Enough energy has been spent on the problem. Now it’s time for a solution.”

Can it come fast enough? “Yes, because a local jurisdiction can kill the chances of any new facility being sited in their jurisdiction. On the other hand, if the jurisdiction gets behind the concept of finding new sites, it can make the system move very fast.”

Until a number of permanent facilities can be established, mobile ones--like those invented by engineers Bob Speach and Quin Johnson at their company, Environmental Services Division in Rancho Dominguez--could provide what Bellomo called “a rapid way to provide treatment” as long as operating permits are obtained. The concept is a good one anyway, he added, “for handling waste streams where they are generated, on the site.”

Waste reduction and even elimination are other on-site solutions that haven’t been given serious thought because sending wastes to a nearby dump or burying or storing it, as manufacturers did for years, was cheap, unlike the costs of clean-up. The federal government now estimates that it may have to clean up more than 10,000 sites at a cost of $100 billion, and that doesn’t take into account monies spent by states and private parties.

Public Acceptance

The limiting factor in establishing permanent treatment facilities is not acquiring the necessary building and other permits, Bellomo emphasized. “The limiting factor is public acceptance of new facilities. A local jurisdiction can do triple somersaults in the review and issuance of a permit if the public acceptance is there.”

Public acceptance has not come easily, given the track record of such dump sites as BKK, but it will come, he predicted, with education and awareness of what will happen if hazardous waste is not legally and practically handled.

As Bergin expressed it:

“The consequence is that someday we’ll drink it.”