AQMD Staff Hits Tire-Burning Proposal : Project Planned in Rialto Poses Health Hazard, Officials Say

Lawyers for the South Coast Air Quality Management District said Wednesday that a company proposing to build a $70-million waste-to-energy plant that would burn scrapped tires has failed three times to meet health risk guidelines and should not be issued a construction permit.

The position was taken before the AQMD’s five-member hearing board, which is considering an appeal by Garb Oil and Power of Salt Lake City to reverse the district’s denial of its request for a permit to build the plant on a deserted 22-acre lot in Rialto.

The denial, issued June 30, was based on a risk assessment of the project supplied by the company, which showed that it would create a cancer risk 16 times greater than the maximum allowable, one case per million people over a 70-year period.

Peter Greenwald, senior deputy counsel for the district, told the board that two previous risk assessments submitted by the company since June 30 failed to assess certain toxic and carcinogenic pollutants, “even though it had been given explicit instructions on several occasions to do so.”

“To put it mildly, the district staff was surprised at this omission,” Greenwald said. “Shocked might be a more accurate term.”

During a break in the hearing, John Brewer, president of Garb Oil, said the denial “is so terribly unfair it should never have been allowed to happen.”

Brewer alleged that air quality officials were under “political pressure” to thwart the project.

Steven Broiles, attorney for the company, argued that the most recent risk assessment prepared by the firm contained inadvertent “mathematical errors” and should not have been used as a basis to deny the permit.

The company has promised to submit yet another modified risk assessment “within a few days,” but Greenwald of the AQMD said it is too late for that now.

The board plans to hear testimony for at least another two days from attorneys involved in the case, company officials, local residents and elected officials from throughout the Inland Empire. A decision could come early next week, air quality officials said.

The project has suffered other setbacks in recent months. In August, the company withdrew an application to build a tire-shredding plant in Riverside County, a few miles south of the proposed tire-burning plant, when it became apparent that county officials would require an environmental impact report on the plan.

But Brewer said he has found an alternate site. “Because of the furor that’s been raised, we’re not going to tell where that is until the permit (for the Rialto plant) is issued,” he said.

Dozens of homeowners who live near the proposed tire-burning plant urged the board not to sanction the plant.

“If this facility is allowed to be constructed at the present site,” said Eva Hewlett of nearby Bloomington, “it will open the door for any person to come in here and burn tires, manure, sewage sludge, garbage and who knows what else to make the Inland Empire the laughing stock and dumping ground of the nation.”