Better Take Another Look

A proposed hazardous-waste incinerator should not be built in Vernon, or anywhere else, until a thorough environmental-impact report has been made. Preparing these reports for any plant dealing with hazardous waste should be automatic, and not subject to any agency’s decision or company’s preference.

California Thermal Treatment Service, Inc., wants to build a high-temperature incinerator that would handle dry-cleaning solvents, used oil, paint sludges and other industrial-chemical byproducts. The company involved conducted a survey to determine where most of these wastes were generated. As a result, it decided that it wanted to build its incinerator on Bandini Boulevard just east of Downey Road in Vernon. The firm says that the incinerator could handle as much as 24,400 tons of waste a year. It would not accept explosive material or radioactive waste.

The developers of this project have obtained 23 of the 24 operating permits that they need. The remaining permit has been approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and the community has two more weeks in which to appeal that decision.

The proposed site for the waste incinerator is in an area of warehouses, industrial plants and railroad tracks. Within one mile in at least two directions are modest single-family homes and garden apartments. The people who live in these homes and the politicians who represent them are Latino. They are tired of what they perceive as limited control over their own futures. They see government approving projects like prisons and incinerators that no one else wants. They are also not persuaded that the company is correct when it says that the health risks are minimal.

So, joined by the city of Los Angeles, they have sued the California Department of Health Services. Last summer the department indicated that it would ask for an environmental-impact report, then changed its mind. The lawsuit argues that the department erred not only in failing to require the report’s preparation but also in making that specific decision without letting the public participate.

The Department of Health Services says that no environmental-impact statement is necessary because the first agency to handle the case, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, ruled earlier that the incinerator would not pose undue risk. But that’s begging the question. The AQMD considered only air quality. It did not consider other risks like spills from trucks carrying waste to the incinerator or the failure of systems that the company has designed to protect against improper mixing of solvents, for example. The AQMD’s study was begun in 1985. Since then its guidelines have changed, as have those under the California Environmental Quality Act. A staff member says that if the district got the permit request today it would require an environmental statement.

There is still time for the Environmental Protection Agency to require the kind of full-dress review of all the health and environmental factors that should have been considered in the first place. Some of the permits might expire during such a review, but if the company is correct and the incinerator facility is safe, then it should be granted the permits again--and quickly. Making this report would certainly be faster than fighting the community in court. And if the EPA doesn’t require the report, then the courts should.