Nearby Cities Wary of Vernon Toxic-Waste Incinerator

Tucked between heavy manufacturing plants and truck shipping facilities in Vernon is an odd assortment of buildings that have set fire to public emotions in nearby communities.

Behind the walls of four nondescript buildings on the 9.9-acre site at 3691 Bandini Blvd., Security Environmental Systems Inc. is proposing to build and operate a commercial hazardous-waste incineration plant. If approved, it would become one of a handful in the state and the only one in an urban area.

Officials in the city of Bell have been the most outspoken in pressing for public hearings on the plant, which would begin operation in early 1989, as well as a full environmental impact report under the California Environmental Quality Act. Bell officials are concerned not only because the proposed waste-burning plant is only a mile away, but also because Bell recently rejected a similar facility due to environmental concerns. And in Maywood, which borders Vernon, a city official has criticized the plant because of its proximity to a heavily populated urban area.

The issue became politicized when three candidates for Bell City Council, including one incumbent, won easy victories on April 8 after sending out mailers stating their opposition to the plant and raising fears that the plant--which will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year--might be approved without any agency doing an environmental impact report.

Careful Scrutiny

However, this week state and South Coast Air Quality Management District officials said they are carefully scrutinizing such facilities because the commercial incineration of hazardous wastes is a fairly new technology in California, which has depended on landfills for the disposal of such waste.

The decision on whether to require an environmental impact report will be made by the air-quality district after it considers material submitted to it on behalf of Security Environmental Systems of Garden Grove.

A myriad of permits is required from local, state and federal agencies, including 23 from the air-quality district, the lead agency for this facility.

Also, four permits must be issued by the state Department of Health Services and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Bright & Associates, a consulting firm in Anaheim, is handling applications and tests for Security Environmental Systems. The consulting firm will prepare a required “risk assessment” for the air-quality district that will detail possible risks to public health and the environment, said the firm’s president Donald Bright.

Risk Assessment Is Key

The district will use the risk assessment, along with other material and public input, to decide whether to require an environmental impact report or issue a declaration that further environmental study by the district is unnecessary, said Jim Birakos, deputy executive officer with the air-quality agency.

The risk assessment is expected to be finished by June, although the district will not be finished with its review until the end of the year, Birakos said. If an environmental impact report is required, it could take more than three months.

Birakos said the air-quality district holds public hearings at its discretion. The public can make requests for a hearing to the governing board, which would then vote on it, he said.

Both the EPA and the state Department of Health Services will have public review periods during which letters and comments will be considered before issuing a draft permit. Terry Wilson, a spokesman for the EPA’s regional office in San Francisco, said the agency will also schedule a public hearing in the vicinity of the proposed plant.

Bright said the company approached Vernon about the plant about a year ago and a preliminary environmental assessment outlining basic plans and environmental questions was submitted in September. The company is negotiating to buy the Bandini Boulevard property.

So far Vernon--which has less than 90 residents and about 1,500 companies--has not taken any action and is waiting until all reviews by the various agencies are completed, said Victor Vaits, director of community services in Vernon.

10 Types of Hazardous Waste

The proposed incinerator will burn 10 types of hazardous wastes, including solvents, refinery waste products and hospital waste such as bandages, syringes and outdated drugs. The incineration process burns wastes at about 1,800 degrees, turning them into ash and gases. The ash is taken to a landfill. The gases have to be treated, Bright said. Byproducts of the incineration include dioxins, furans, heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

While some dioxins and furans are not toxic, some are extremely toxic and have been known to cause cancer and birth defects in laboratory animals. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons is the generic name for a broad group of carcinogenic chemicals.

The Bell council felt the preliminary document was not thorough and wrote a letter last month to the air-quality district raising concerns about the plant and asking them to require a full environmental impact report.

“A facility like this should not be built without having done a full EIR study,” said Councilman George Cole, who first inquired about the proposed plant in January. “The preliminary study they did left a lot of unanswered questions.”

Cole added that Bell turned down the possibility of a similar facility last October because of “health hazards and unanswered questions.”

Lack of Track Record

Councilman Jay Price said city officials were also apprehensive because of the lack of a track record for such facilities in urban areas. “We simply didn’t want to get into something where we didn’t know what was going on.”

In August, Whittier-based Omega Chemical Co. proposed a plant on 8.6 acres south of Bandini Boulevard in Bell. The council reviewed an environmental study of the plant and decided not to go ahead.

“The facility we rejected was much more controlled and monitored,” Cole said. “Now we see one being proposed” that seems less structured “than what we were talking about.”

In its letter to the district, the council expresses concern about the history and safety records of similar facilities as well as the role of local agencies in an emergency, and seeks more information on the wastes to be processed.

Maywood Councilwoman Betty Lou Rogers said she has asked her city clerk to get more information about the plant. “Most cities don’t want it in their backyard,” said Rogers, noting that more than 23,000 residents live in the 1.4-square-mile city. “If there are any fumes, we’ll be getting them.”

Vernon Hearing Planned

In addition to the public hearings to be held by the EPA and the state Health Services Department, Vernon will also hold a public hearing, Bright said.

Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for the state health services agency, said the 45-day public review period for letters and verbal comments will be scheduled once a draft permit is ready to be issued. She said the department is still in the initial review stage with the permit application.

If the plant gets tentative approval from the various agencies, Bright estimates it will take 14 months for construction and four months for the required test burns. The $18-million facility could be fully operational by January, 1989, he said. The company, which has operated a Garden Grove hospital waste incineration plant since 1972, chose Vernon for the plant because it is near many businesses that produce hazardous wastes.

The state Department of Health Services estimates that 38% of the waste in the state is generated in the Los Angeles region.

“The market is there. There is a strong need for it,” Bright said.

State and local officials said the incineration plant represents a fairly new technology in California. The only other plant that accepts and burns liquid hazardous wastes is in Kern County, but it is not commercial. Another proposed commercial incineration facility, in Carson, is close to being approved. Staufer Chemical Co. has proposed a plant to burn primarily liquid wastes that could be in operation by late summer.

‘Incinerators ... Topical’

“All of a sudden incinerators . . . became very topical issues,” Birakos said. “We seemed to have moved from burying things to burning things.”

Dick Eriksson, a waste management engineer with the state health services agency, described a move away from landfills to alternative technologies such as incinerators.

“It’s a substitute for putting things on the land. If we don’t put it on the land, and we keep making it, it has got to go somewhere,” said Eriksson, who works in the alternative technology and policy development section of the toxic substances control division. “It’s a feasible option we’re looking at. I’m not saying incinerators are either good or bad.”

He said having an incinerator near a city would be “precedent-setting.” The Kern County facility that General Portland Inc. operates is in Lebec.

But even though it is a new technology that could be an answer to burying wastes, the various agencies regulating incinerators say it is a long and complicated road to final approval.

Literally “thousands of details have to be addressed,” Eriksson said. “I don’t believe incinerators will be shooed in automatically” by the various agencies.

“This thing is pretty much under a microscope.”