Bipartisan Bills Aimed at Toxics Cleanup Unveiled

Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, joined by Republican and Democratic legislators and industry and environmental groups, Thursday unveiled a package of hazardous waste treatment and cleanup measures that he said could “turn around” the state’s stubborn toxic problems.

The key element of the package was a bill by Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia) and Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) to replace leaking toxic waste dumps with “residuals repositories,” dry landfills that could accept only ash and other dry residue left when toxic wastes are incinerated and chemically treated.

Although the issue of toxics cleanup is expected to be a major issue this election year, McCarthy, a Democrat, said the proposals are not a response to Republican Gov. George Deukmejian’s failed attempt to create a toxics agency.

“I’m not keeping score,” McCarthy said of the battle between Deukmejian and Democratic legislative leaders, who disagree over how to organize a toxics control agency. Last week Assembly Democrats rejected Deukmejian’s proposal for a toxics agency, sending him a rival plan that he vetoed.

McCarthy’s proposal to build “two or maybe three” of the special landfills in California follows by several months a decision by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to find a site for the same type of repository within the county.

The board’s plan has received strong backing from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials, who believe that the special landfills, successfully used in Europe for the past decade, will eventually replace traditional land dumping of liquid toxic wastes.

A second bill, by Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose), would provide grants to remove chemicals from tainted ground water supplies by using activated carbon granules, another process used extensively in Europe.

McCarthy said the grants would be targeted to five polluted water systems in the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, Santa Clara Valley, Contra Costa County and Fresno County.

A third bill, by Assemblywoman Lucy Killea (D-San Diego), Sen. Becky Morgan (R-Los Altos Hills) and Assemblyman Sam Farr (D-Carmel), would create a team of private and public experts to explore and test new waste treatment technologies.

Other bills would:

- Create a state review team to monitor chemical plants.

- Change the way sites are ranked on the state Superfund cleanup list to give top priority to those that threaten human health.

- Set up a voluntary register of environmental experts who could be hired by small businesses to advise them on the manufacture and handling of toxic substances.

- Create a program to train emergency personnel to respond to chemical fires and spills.

Noting that the individuals who joined him to announce the bills included representatives of the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and industry-oriented California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, McCarthy said such support is “the only way, especially with the current climate in Sacramento, that we are going to have any success” in ending the state’s toxics problems.