Plan to Recycle Toxics, New Law Stir Fight : Foes of Proposed Plant in Oceanside Are Upset

Robert Salisbury retired to a comfortable home on the rim of Oceanside’s sprawling San Luis Rey valley, figuring he could while away the days in peace. Now, he’s not so sure.

Down in the valley, plans are afoot for a 51,000-square-foot toxic waste recycling plant. It’s not the sort of neighbor Salisbury had in mind when he moved to Oceanside.

Though officials at Recontek, the San Diego firm planning the plant, insist the operation will be perfectly safe, Salisbury and other residents are not so sure. These days, visions of environmental calamities such as the 1984 disaster that killed more than 2,000 people in Bhopal, India, dance through their heads.

“What do they call it? The worst-case scenario?” Salisbury said. “With the prevailing winds, if anything should happen there, they’d carry it right toward me. I just don’t see how they can risk the heart of a coastal city like that.”

Long War Shaping Up

Opponents like Salisbury are already lining up for what promises to be a prolonged war. While Recontek officials have made it clear they see Oceanside as the perfect site for their plant, many residents are suggesting the firm should look elsewhere.

But to defeat Recontek’s proposal, foes will likely have to take their fight far beyond Oceanside City Hall.

Under a new state act known as the Tanner Bill, municipalities like Oceanside have been stripped of the final say in land-use decisions on toxic-waste treatment centers and disposal sites.

The bill, named after its prime sponsor, Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-Baldwin Park), allows a city’s decision on such facilities to be appealed to a special seven-member state board made up of county and local representatives drawn from throughout California.

It is a classic attempt to fight the NIMBY--Not In My Back Yard--syndrome. No city covets hosting a toxic processing plant, but state officials say the treatment facilities are vitally needed, especially with a 1990 deadline looming for all of California’s existing hazardous waste dumps to shut down. By then, state officials want individual counties to develop safer alternatives.

Oceanside city officials understand all that. Nonetheless, they are decidely irked to have their traditional land-use responsibilities superseded by a state board that has no vested interest in Oceanside.

“It bothers me very much,” said Mayor Larry Bagley. “I think it’s very disturbing that they would attempt to use this particular area of concern to start coming in and taking land-use powers away from the cities.”

Residents have made their feelings clearly known. At a recent meeting held to explain the Byzantine regulatory processes mandated by the Tanner Bill, about 300 people packed a high school auditorium in Oceanside and shouted down a state official as he attempted to speak.

“The state is trying to shove this plant down our throats,” griped Charisse Krieger, chairwoman of Citizens Against Risking the Environment, a grass-roots group opposed to the plant. “I think the Tanner Bill stinks.”

Recontek officials, meanwhile, see it differently. They are confident the proposed plant can meet every necessary environmental protection regulation and, therefore, will ultimately win approval, whether it be from the Oceanside council or the state appeals board.

“We believe that our facility is environmentally safer than most manufacturing facilities, safer than a dry cleaner, safer than a gas station,” said Wayne Rosenbaum, a company spokesman. “We believe that we can meet the highest technical and environmental standards set by all the regulatory agencies.”

Planned for an industrial park near Oceanside Municipal Airport, the plant would recycle wastes produced by the electronics and aerospace industries, breaking them down into precious metals and other base components for resale.

There are no existing commercial operations using that type of alchemy in the United States, although the processes were discovered a century ago, Recontek officials say. The firm currently has a prototype plant operating on an experimental basis in San Diego and plans a larger facility outside a small town in central Illinois.

Opponents, however, remain unconvinced that the plant would prove safe.

Aside from concerns about the potential for an accident inside the plant, foes note that the facility would draw a ballooning number of trucks laden with toxics onto Oceanside’s streets, heightening the risk of a traffic accident and subsequent spill.

Moreover, they worry about the recycling plant acting as a magnet for high-tech and aerospace firms that produce toxics, transforming Oceanside into a heavily industrialized city rife with pollution.

Others suggest the proposed site for the Recontek plant is unsuitable for such a use. The parcel is located in a flood plain for the San Luis Rey River and near an underground aquifer the city is considering using for water storage.

Eager to undercut the proposal, opponents in late May asked for a moratorium on the plant until the county adopts its hazardous-waste management plan, which will act as a guide for siting toxic treatment and storage facilities.

The county plan is expected to be ratified early next year. To allow Recontek to move forward without having the county plan in place, opponents argued, would be putting the cart before the horse.

Two weeks ago, however, the City Council rejected the idea. According to City Atty. Charles Revlett, a moratorium would constitute tacit disapproval of the project, meaning Recontek could immediately appeal to the state. Under such a scenario, Oceanside would effectively lose any chance it has of reviewing the project, Revlett advised.

The San Diego City Council recently suffered a similar fate, Revlett said, when it attempted to block a private firm, Ogden Environmental Services, from burning toxic waste in an experimental incinerator atop La Jolla’s scenic Torrey Pines Mesa.

Bagley, meanwhile, argues that a moratorium was simply not needed. The city’s review of the Recontek plant is expected to take more than a year to complete, meaning a final decision on the project will surely fall well after the county hazardous-waste plan is adopted, he said.

City officials have also hinted that, if the cards are played right, Recontek might be defeated with existing municipal land-use rules.

The plant can only be located on a parcel zoned for heavy industry, but the site being considered for the recycling center is currently designated for light industry. Recontek will need to go through a regulatory gauntlet to alter those zoning rules, a process that will give opponents numerous chances to shoot down the proposal, Oceanside officials suggest.