Alliance to Challenge Tire-Burning Plant

RIALTO — City and county officials from throughout the Inland Empire have banded together to legally challenge a proposed $70-million waste-to-energy plant that would burn scrapped tires in this San Bernardino County city.

The unusual alliance was formed Monday in response to a unanimous decision Dec. 22 by a five-member South Coast Air Quality Management District hearing board to reverse the district’s earlier denial of a request by Garb Oil & Power of Salt Lake City for a permit to build the plant. Representatives of the alliance refused to discuss their legal plans or strategy.

The air quality district’s hearing board is to meet today with Garb Oil executives to discuss conditions that must be met before the permit can be formally issued for construction of the 35-megawatt power plant on a deserted 22-acre lot.

“The conditions will basically deal with possible new control systems that might reduce emissions even more at the plant,” said Jim Birakos, deputy executive director of the air quality district.

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

John Brewer, president of the company, appealed the denial to the hearing board on grounds that the firm had mistakenly supplied air quality district officials with inaccurate figures.

After three months of testimony from engineers, lawyers and residents on both sides of the issue, the hearing board ruled that new information from the company indicated that the risk would be within acceptable limits, Birakos said.

City and county officials and hundreds of angry residents insisted, however, that the plant would churn out dangerous amounts of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals in their already smoggy skies.

“The administrative remedies have been exhausted,” said Fazle Quadri, senior executive analyst to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. “The next step is the judicial system itself.”

Ivan Hopkins, city manager of Grand Terrace, said at a meeting of local government officials Monday that the Riverside law firm of Best, Best & Krieger would be retained at a cost of from $50,000 to $100,000 “to find a legal device to stop it.”

Hopkins said the major part of the cost would be shouldered by the cities and counties of Riverside and San Bernardino.