2 Legislators Seek to Slow Waste Plants : Toxics Panels’ Leaders Cite Possible Dangers of Dioxin Emissions

A controversial waste-to-energy plant proposed for South-Central Los Angeles and others like it should not be built until the dangers of dioxin emissions are clearly understood, the leaders of the state Senate and Assembly toxics committees said Thursday.

At the same time, Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-El Monte) roundly assailed plans to locate three of the controversial incineration plants in minority, low-income neighborhoods.

The go-slow advice from the two lawmakers came less than a week after the state Air Resources Board designated 15 dioxins as toxic air contaminants with no known safe exposure level. Dioxins are among the most dangerous compounds known to man.

It also pointed to a dilemma increasingly faced by policy makers who have stepped up efforts to find alternatives to leaking landfills only to be confronted by growing opposition to incinerators from residents who fear that their health will be threatened by toxic air contaminants.

Last March, the Los Angeles City Council entered into negotiations with a New Jersey company to build and operate a $235-million municipal trash-burning plant in South-Central Los Angeles. If approved, construction of the project, known as Lancer (Los Angeles City Energy Recovery), would begin next spring and open by the spring of 1990.

Two other waste-to-energy plants in the immediate vicinity are planned in Vernon and the City of Commerce.

“Part of the problem that we all face,” Torres said, “is that we don’t want to revert back to landfills. . . . I don’t think this committee, at least not this chairman, is opposed to incineration. It’s a matter of where those incinerators are placed and what precautions are taken to ensure that the health and safety is there.”

Proponents of incineration, including Jeff Hahn of Ogden Martin Systems Inc.--the company negotiating to build the Los Angeles plant--testified that modern plants would emit “minimal amounts” of dioxins.

But, Torres said that such technological gains may be offset by findings that the compounds are retained in human tissue for four to six years, compared to one to two months in animals, and thus pose a greater threat because they can accumulate.

“Don’t you think it’s wise not to permit anything to start construction until we know just what we’re dealing with in terms of dioxin levels?” Torres asked Hahn.

Tanner, who chairs the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxics Materials Committee, said that she did not understand how any waste-to-energy plant could be approved in view of uncertainties about the adverse health effects of air toxics.

“I think it’s a terrible mistake that we move before we know, and before we know how to control those emissions. It frightens me,” she said.

Torres and Tanner’s remarks also clearly reflected concerns of residents of South-Central Los Angeles, Vernon and the City of Commerce. Among those testifying Thursday against the Lancer project were members of Concerned Citizens of South-Central Los Angeles.

“We’re not only forced to take a new state prison, we are now being forced to look at waste incinerators in almost a volcanic ring surrounding the 24th Senatorial District and Central and East Los Angeles,” Torres complained during a hearing of his Senate Toxics and Public Safety Management Committee.

Hahn, however, reminded Torres that Los Angeles also plans similar plants in West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.