Strict Waste-Control Policy Becomes Law in Burbank

The Burbank City Council has formally adopted a policy, in effect for about a year, that it says has brought certain industries into compliance with federal and state waste-control laws.

The city’s municipal code will be amended to include the policy, officials said.

“We’ve been taking a strict enforcement posture in regard to industrial-waste discharges,” said Carl G. Brooks, director of Burbank’s Public Works Department. “We have identified all the businesses and industries that were violating their emission requirements, and they are now cooperating with us.”

Brooks said that before the measures became effective, some electroplating industries in Burbank would illegally discharge chemicals such as cadmium and chromium into the sewer system. He added that some industries were also discharging solid waste, sodium and chloride into the sewers.

Civil Penalties

Burbank, which formally approved the policy Wednesday, can impose civil penalties of as much as $25,000 on industries that allow toxic waste or illegal chemicals into their discharges or that falsify reports about components of their discharges. Though the city has never taken such action, city officials stressed that they have the power to terminate sewer connections or to revoke the industrial-waste permits of violators.

“It never got to the point where we had to impose fines on the violators, and now our industries are within full Environmental Protection Agency compliance,” Brooks said.

The measures were adopted in response to criticism by the state Regional Water Control Board and the federal EPA. The agencies said Burbank was deficient in enforcing industrial-waste regulations and in imposing penalties against consistent violators.

The city generates about 16 million gallons of waste daily, Brooks said. About 7 million gallons are sent to the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant under a contract with the city of Los Angeles.

Brooks said expansion of Burbank’s sewage-treatment plant would enable the city to handle 13 million gallons a day of sewage instead of the current 11 million gallons.