Plan to Send L.A. Sludge to Guatemala May Be Down the Tubes

Los Angeles’ plan to ship 350 tons of concentrated sewage a day to Guatemala abruptly unraveled Thursday--or at least appeared to--as the Guatemalan ambassador angrily announced that his country has rejected the proposal.

The news stunned disbelieving Los Angeles officials who are counting on the Guatemalan deal to help the city comply with a court order to halt sludge dumping that is now blamed for contaminating Santa Monica Bay. Only a week ago, officials said, the Guatemalan ambassador had voiced enthusiasm for the project during negotiations in Los Angeles.

The Guatemalan announcement triggered confusion and a flurry of accusations between the ambassador and Los Angeles officials, as well as those at Applied Recovery Technologies Inc., a Virginia-based waste-recycling firm involved in the deal.

“This is out of left field,” said Deputy City Atty. Chris Westhoff, counsel to the Los Angeles Board of Public Works. “I’m hoping at this point it is some miscommunication between Guatemala and the ambassador.”

“We are attempting to find out whether the information is correct or not,” said Hank Valentino, president of Applied Recovery Technologies. “For me at this point its all hearsay.”

The Board of Public Works had been expected to approve an agreement with the firm on Monday. It was believed that the company had reached an agreement with the Guatemalan government for a project in which sludge would be processed into fertilizer for agriculture and reforestation projects. Such sludge-to-compost operations are common in the United States and include one operated by the Los Angeles County Sanitation District.

Oscar Padilla Vidaure, Guatemalan ambassador to the United States, issued a terse statement in reaction to a report in The Times on Tuesday in which city officials portrayed the Guatemalan government as eager to consummate the sludge deal. In fact, Padilla Vidaure said, his government “will not sign such a contract, since it was rejected some time ago.”

Later, in a conference call between a reporter, the Guatemalan Consulate in Los Angeles and Padilla Vidaure in Washington, D.C., the ambassador accused Applied Recovery Technologies of deceptive lobbying practices and “trying to put pressure, American-style pressure” to accomplish the transaction.

In particular, the ambassador said he was not well-versed on the sludge deal when he attended the Los Angeles meeting, and had expected other, more knowledgeable Guatemalan officials to attend as well. Applied Recovery Technologies, he said, “kept quiet from me . . . the knowledge that Guatemalan governmental officials had already rejected the project.”

The firm “goofed everything up,” he said.

The ambassador said that, after news of the plan was reported, the Guatemalan president’s office notified him that the proposal had been rejected because of fears of heavy-metal contamination.

Cites Good Relations

In a brief interview, Barry Groveman, a former deputy city attorney now representing Applied Recovery Technologies, disputed Padilla Vidaure’s statements. Valentino said his company’s relationship with Guatemalan officials has “been very cordial and positive.”

Los Angeles officials suggested that Guatemalan officials are to blame for the controversy.

“We were getting nothing by good signals from the Guatemalan government and the ambassador,” said Maureen Kindel, president of the Board of Public Works. “So this is an about-face.”

The board’s attorney, Westhoff, said that in five months of negotiations he had met with several Guatemala government officials, including environmental protection ministers. “Everything up to this point has been positive,” Westhoff said. He also said that Applied Recovery Technologies had been “above board” in its dealings with the city.

Kindel said the confusion “is something the Board of Public Works would have to take into consideration” in its decision on the contract.

“Although the city contract would be with ART (the recovery firm), and it’s ART’s responsibility to dispose of sludge, we naturally have a concern about the whole project,” Kindel said.

“The board just cannot award a contract in a vacuum. We’ll have to wait till Monday to consider all the evidence.”

Under the plan, Los Angeles would pay at least $6 million a year to Guatemala. The plan was attractive to Los Angeles officials because it would provide a way to dispose of sludge after the end of this year, when the federal court order forbids further dumping in the Pacific.