Rail Plan Seen as One Cure for Waste Crisis

Hauling trash by rail to disposal sites in the desert is technically feasible and is “a potential solution to the solid waste disposal crisis projected for the 1990s,” according to a study commissioned by an association of San Gabriel Valley cities.

The report says area landfills will begin closing in 1995 or earlier, and it is unlikely that new dumps can be opened or that trash incineration plants can be built in an urban area such as the San Gabriel Valley because of community opposition. Other options, such as recycling or composting, cannot solve the problem by themselves, the study says.

If residents will not allow expansion of the Puente Hills landfill or accept waste-to-energy plants, the report says, “then transporting the waste to a remote site may be the only alternative.”

The report, which is still in draft form and runs nearly 300 pages, identifies several sites where San Gabriel Valley trash could be loaded onto trains for shipment to disposal facilities that could be developed in Kern, Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial counties.

Hauling trash by rail has rarely been attempted in this country, the study says, but successful systems are operating in Europe, where it is considered cheaper to haul by rail than by truck at distances over 50 miles.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments, a regional planning agency, prepared the report for the San Gabriel Valley Assn. of Cities under the direction of a subcommittee headed by West Covina Councilwoman Nancy Manners.

Manners said the report “gives credibility” to those who have been advocating the shipment of trash to remote desert sites. The study shows that rail hauling is not nearly as costly as many thought it would be, she said.

“We had a feeling it would be so sky-high that it would be impossible,” Manners said, “but (the cost) is in the ballpark.”

The report says homeowners in the San Gabriel Valley pay an average of $9.35 a month to have their garbage collected. Rail-haul disposal would push the cost to between $12.50 and $14.50 a month, an increase of 33% to 55%.

Gill V. Hicks, who managed the study for SCAG, said the cost could be much higher if the area delays a decision on rail hauling until dumps close.

“It if is well planned and thoughtfully done, we can keep the costs down,” Hicks said. But if cities delay decisions and try to start a rail-haul program under crisis conditions after dumps start shutting down, the cost will escalate, he said.

The report says: “To avoid crisis economics, the decision to begin a waste-by-rail program should be made by this summer. It would be at least five years before a system could be operational.”

Hicks said the first step would be to designate an agency to request proposals from private contractors interested in developing a complete trash disposal system that would use the railroads. Cities could form a joint powers agency or use the county Sanitation Districts or the state Waste Management Board to solicit proposals.

Hicks said the railroads have a strong interest in hauling trash, seeing it as a potentially lucrative revenue source. The San Gabriel Valley is served by the Santa Fe, Southern Pacific and Union Pacific rail lines.

The report says a waste-by-rail system will require complex business and political agreements.

“The political feasibility of waste-by-rail is by no means assured,” it says. “Elected officials from areas proposed for the disposal of Los Angeles-area waste are at best neutral on the subject.”

The report recommends that San Gabriel Valley officials begin talking about the waste-by-rail project with officials from areas where the waste could be sent. The report suggests that a royalty of $2 a ton be paid to the receiving county as a financial incentive.

Several potential disposal sites are listed in the study. The nearest, just 68 miles from the City of Industry, is on the Morongo Indian Reservation at Cabazon in Riverside County. The report says the Morongo Indians would be willing to consider a proposal. About 400 of the 800 members of the tribe live on the reservation, but only 1,000 of the 36,000 acres are inhabited. The Southern Pacific main line goes through the reservation.

Elsewhere in Riverside County, Kaiser Steel Corp. owns huge pits at Eagle Mountain, near Desert Center, that were mined for iron ore and could be filled with rubbish. The report says the pits could hold 150 million tons of refuse. Kaiser and a San Diego company are evaluating the suitability of the site for waste disposal. The pits can be reached by way of a Southern Pacific line and a 55-mile private railway owned by Kaiser.

CMRR Inc. has proposed a project near Blythe in Riverside County that would create a fuel from refuse and burn it to provide a power supply to industrial customers. But the report says the Santa Fe railroad, which serves the area, believes that the site is too far from the Los Angeles area to be economically competitive. In addition, the rail line would require $10 million in improvements before it could be used by heavy refuse trains. Blythe is about 300 miles from the San Gabriel Valley by rail, while most other potential sites are within 200 miles.

In Imperial County, Railroad Waste Management Inc. proposed a major landfill near a Southern Pacific line 12 miles east of Niland in 1987, but sold its interest in the project in February to Ogden Martin, a major developer of refuse-to-energy plants. The report says Ogden Martin has not specified whether it hopes to build a landfill, recycling center or waste-to-energy plant. The area is served by Southern Pacific.

A Ventura company has proposed construction of a landfill three miles southeast of Tehachapi in Kern County. The site is on the Southern Pacific line to Bakersfield.

In San Bernardino County, the report says, Donald R. Reachert & Associates of Apple Valley has proposed plants that would separate and recycle metal and glass and burn other waste to generate gas or electricity. Proposed sites are at Oro Grande, which is north of Victorville, and at Dunn, northeast of Barstow. Union Pacific rail lines are near both sites, and Oro Grande also is near the Santa Fe main line.

Other Sites

The report lists other potential disposal sites near Hector, 35 miles east of Barstow, and at Amboy, which is north of Twentynine Palms.

The study recommends that trash be transported to the disposal sites in covered, leak-proof rail cars to minimize odors and that trains be run at night to avoid inconveniencing large numbers of motorists at railroad crossings.

The report lists several places along rail lines where trucks could dump refuse from the San Gabriel Valley for transfer onto rail cars.

“The feasibility of waste-by-rail will depend in part on the willingness of communities in the San Gabriel Valley to accept the necessary transfer stations or loading yards,” the study says.

The leading site for a transfer station is identified as a 36-acre parcel south of Valley Boulevard and east of Brea Canyon Road that is owned by the City of Industry.

Believed Feasible

The report says the City of Industry “believes that a waste processing and loading yard at this location would be both technically and politically feasible, at least from Industry’s standpoint. One disadvantage of this site, however, is the nearby residential land use north of Valley Boulevard in the City of Walnut.”

The site is bordered by both the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific rail lines.

Other suggested sites are in Irwindale at the Southern Pacific rail yard north of Cypress Street and along the Santa Fe main line near the Santa Fe Dam recreation area, but the report says Irwindale officials want to use one of the sites for an industrial park and may want the other for a parking lot for the proposed football stadium for the Raiders.

‘Reacted Skeptically’

The report says Pomona officials “have reacted skeptically” to a site suggested by Santa Fe near Garey Avenue in Pomona.

Other possibilities include the Los Angeles Transportation Center and the Taylor and Aurrant rail yards, all serving Southern Pacific in Los Angeles, Union Pacific’s East Los Angeles yard in the City of Commerce and Santa Fe’s Hobart yard in Vernon. All have the disadvantage of being outside the San Gabriel Valley, and the trains based there would have to travel through heavily populated areas.

The report says the Santa Fe railroad would prefer to load refuse on trains at the Kaiser steel plant in Fontana, but that site is probably better suited to loading waste generated in western San Bernardino County.

The report notes that San Bernardino County is also running out of landfills to serve its populated west side and that the San Gabriel Valley could cooperate with cities there on a waste-by-rail project. Other partnerships could be considered with the city of Los Angeles, which has commissioned its own waste-by-rail study, and with cities in the South Bay, which send a large part of their rubbish to dumps in the San Gabriel Valley.

The area’s four landfills, BKK in West Covina, Puente Hills near Hacienda Heights, Spadra in Pomona and Azusa Land Reclamation Co. in Azusa, receive 48% of the county’s trash, the study says. In addition, the Scholl Canyon landfill in Glendale, which serves Pasadena, San Marino, Sierra Madre and South Pasadena, takes about 10% of the countywide trash total.

Puente Hills, which handles one-fourth of all the county’s trash, has a permit that expires in 1993. The permit could be extended, but much of the remaining area for expansion would put the dump closer to homes in Hacienda Heights.

The BKK Corp. has signed an agreement with the City of West Covina to close its landfill, which is the third largest in the county and second largest in the San Gabriel Valley, by 1995.

Azusa Land Reclamation Co. sought unsuccessfully last week to obtain a permit from the regional Water Quality Control Board to extend the life of its landfill in Azusa. The dump could close in two years unless the owners can obtain a new permit, which is opposed by San Gabriel Valley water producers who contend that waste could leak into ground water.

The rail-haul study includes an economic analysis that suggests that a rail-haul system will increase trash collection bills for homeowners by about $4 a month. The estimate does not include the costs of engineering, preparing environmental impact studies, or taking steps to overcome special problems, such as by building grade separations at rail crossings to prevent traffic delays.

The report notes that all the potential disposal sites are outside the South Coast air basin, meaning that landfills and waste-to-energy plants could be built there without meeting the tough standards of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. In addition, any pollution generated by hauling trash through the valley would be less than the pollution that would be generated by a new landfill or a waste-to-energy plant.

The rail-haul subcommittee of the San Gabriel Valley Assn. of Cities will review the draft report April 18 and submit recommendations to the full association at a meeting at 7 p.m. April 21 in West Covina.