2 on Environmental Agency May Resign Over Trash Dispute

The president and at least one other member of the city’s environmental watchdog agency have threatened to resign, saying that the mayor’s office is preventing them from reviewing LANCER, the city’s controversial plan to build three huge trash-burning incinerators.

The statements, from Robert L. Glushon, president of the five-member Environmental Quality Board, and Denise Fairchild came after Deputy Mayor Tom Houston told Glushon to cancel a briefing on the trash-to-energy plants. One of the plants, a $235-million facility, is planned for mostly black South-Central Los Angeles. LANCER stands for the Los Angeles City Energy Recovery project.

The LANCER briefing, at which city department heads were to make status reports to the board, had been scheduled for today’s board meeting.

“This is the first time that a major environmental issue has come home to the black community,” Fairchild, who is black, said Monday. “Unfortunately, it is apparent from the actions of the mayor’s office that they don’t want us to know what is going on,” she said, adding that she planned to resign and run for the City Council.

Glushon and Fairchild said Houston told them that the LANCER project is a “politically sensitive” matter that the Environmental Quality Board should not meddle in.

Glushon said the board should be abolished if it is prevented from scrutinizing an issue as important to the local environment as LANCER.

“If we are going to be thwarted from looking into issues that no one else is looking into, then I will be the first to call for the disbanding of this board, and I will resign,” he said.

Backed by Mayor Tom Bradley and the City Council, LANCER is incurring widespread local opposition, partly because of fears that such trash-burning plants emit a high level of cancer causing dioxins--the same compounds found in Agent Orange, the Vietnam-era defoliant.

A third member of the Environmental Quality Board, Robert Hattoy, regional director of the Sierra Club, also criticized the mayor’s office for calling off the LANCER briefing. He said the intrusion by the mayor’s office is typical of the problems the board has had trying to address important local issues, ranging from offshore oil drilling to air quality.

“The interaction between the board and the mayor’s office has been virtually non-existent,” Hattoy said.

“The board has rarely been given a chance to demonstrate any environmental expertise because it doesn’t have any strength. The mayor’s office says ‘Don’t do anything until we tell you to do it,’ and it rarely tells us to do anything,” he added.

Glushon, a lawyer, Fairchild, an urban planning consultant, and Hattoy all were appointed to the board by Bradley.

Houston defended cancellation of the LANCER briefing, maintaining that the Environmental Quality Board had no business putting the matter on its agenda without prior approval from either the mayor’s office or the director of planning.

“Their (the board’s) role is to advise on matters they are requested to advise on, and, at this juncture, they had not been asked to do anything with the LANCER project.”

Houston’s view of the board’s role differs from that of Glushon, Fairchild and Hattoy.

According to Houston, the board’s role is a limited one, confined to assisting the mayor or the director of planning on environmental policy when asked to help. The board members, on the other hand, say their job includes initiating inquiries into matters, such as LANCER, that have raised questions among members of the public.

Seen as Political Ploy

Houston was particularly critical of Fairchild, accusing her of using her position on the board as a springboard to public office.

“What we have here is a mixing of what goes on the agenda of a public board and what’s part of a private political campaign. LANCER is her ticket to the campaign,” Houston said.

Houston said Fairchild had been speaking out against LANCER at community meetings since November when, he pointed out, she notified the city clerk’s office that she was a potential candidate for the 10th District seat on the council.

The South-Central LANCER project is to be located on a 13-acre site in the nearby 9th District at 41st and Alameda streets. City officials are looking for sites for the two other plants on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley.

Problem for Bradley

Fairchild’s role is not the only political issue raised by the furor over the canceled LANCER briefing.

Bradley, contemplating running for a fifth term in office, is trying to solidify his traditional base of support, which includes environmentalists, who have grown increasingly wary of the mayor, and with leaders of the financial community, who contribute generously to Bradley and who stand to profit handsomely from sale of the bonds to finance LANCER.

While the mayor works to make LANCER a success, a nascent movement of anti-development neighborhood groups and environmentalists are working to extend their network of support beyond the city’s Westside to East and South-Central Los Angeles.

Last Saturday, one of the most active Westside groups, Not Yet New York, hosted a meeting that attested to the potential of a new alliance. Present were about 60 people, with at least one-fourth of the group representing black South-Central Los Angeles. Speakers included Rep. Augustus Hawkins (D-Los Angeles), State Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) and at least four City Council candidates, including Fairchild.

The main topic was opposition to the LANCER project.