Vernon Incinerator’s Firm Has Record of Violations

The company that has received permits to build the state’s first full-scale commercial hazardous waste incinerator in Vernon has been cited dozens of times for health and safety violations at infectious waste incinerators in Garden Grove and Long Beach, according to public records.

Twin medical waste incinerators operated by Security Environmental Systems, Inc. in Garden Grove were shut down in 1986 under pressure from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which had cited the firm at least 29 times for air emission violations spanning a decade. The company’s Long Beach incinerator, which is still running, has racked up at least 20 violation notices in the last six years, according to air district files.

In addition, company officials sometimes have denied access to inspectors, and have erupted into fits of rage when cited, according to air district records reviewed by The Times.

District official Ben Shaw, formerly head of enforcement for the agency’s industrial branch, termed the company’s behavior “unique” and “by far the most threatening” in his three years in that post.

Describes Incident

In one 1985 incident described in a memo, company officer Jonathan Grossman allegedly kicked and beat on walls and doors, then brandished an open container of medical waste and told the inspector to dump it on the district’s enforcement chief.

On another occasion, Alfred Grossman, Security Environmental board chairman, allegedly squeezed the same inspector’s face between his palms, according to her memo. The Grossmans refused to be interviewed, but a lawyer for the company said neither of these incidents took place.

But this troubled past has not kept Security Environmental and its wholly owned subsidiary--California Thermal Treatment Service--from getting permits for the 22,500-ton-per-year hazardous waste burner it plans to operate at a Bandini Boulevard site about 4 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. The city of Vernon, the state Department of Health Services, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the air district itself have issued permits--although it appears that an environmental impact study may delay the project.

Medical waste incinerators use searing heat to destroy refuse such as syringes, waste paper and body fluids from hospitals and clinics that may contain disease-producing bacteria or viruses. The hazardous waste incinerator planned for Vernon would burn waste sludges, solvents and oils from various industrial and commercial generators.

Some officials acknowledged having little data on Security Environmental Systems’ record when they issued the permits.

Officials’ Views

“We didn’t look into it in great detail,” said Larry Bowerman, chief of the alternative technology section at EPA regional headquarters in San Francisco.

“I personally did not delve much into it,” said Steve Baxter, a state Department of Health Services engineer involved in the permit review.

But Bowerman and Baxter said the issue was largely irrelevant. Along with air district officials, they said their task is to review projects on technical grounds and to set conditions to bring compliance with environmental standards.

Over the years, Security Environmental Systems, based in Garden Grove, has been a family-run business operated by Alfred Grossman and his sons, Jonathan and Stephen. The Grossmans themselves have helped operate the plants.

Donald Bright, an environmental consultant to the company and manager of the Vernon project, said the firm’s record is irrelevant because trained technicians, rather than the Grossmans, will be in charge of the hazardous waste incinerator. The Grossmans “do not have the background for that, and they’ve never presumed that they would be operating it,” Bright said.

“Regardless of what they may or may not have done in the past, it’s not going to have any bearing.”

During the last two years, the firm’s operations have been cited by Vernon health officials, the California Waste Management Board, the California Highway Patrol and the state Department of Health Services.

But the firm’s long and troubled dealings with the air district are more striking by far. From 1978-87, the Garden Grove and Long Beach waste burners were issued at least 49 violation notices--some of which are still pending.

The company was not always found at fault. Some of its citations were successfully prosecuted in Orange County as criminal misdemeanors. Some apparently were not pursued, and others were dismissed as part of negotiated settlements in which citations were dropped in exchange for penalty payments on others.

Paid Fines, Penalties

Over the years, the firm has paid at least $28,000 in penalties and fines, according to air district records.

“Obviously, this is a large number of violations,” said district spokesman Bill Kelly. Kelly added that it is unusual for the district to secure an abatement order, such as the one that caused the shutdown of the Garden Grove facility. That the district had to resort to this “unusual procedure . . . speaks for itself,” Kelly said.

Most citations alleged excessive discharge of particulates and smoke. A frequent cause was failure to maintain adequate temperatures and to observe limits on the amount of hospital waste burned at one time. Such conditions are crucial to proper operation of any type of incinerator, officials said.

Lapses sometimes occurred with inspectors looking on. An inspector once reported that he advised Alfred Grossman that Grossman was about to load the incinerator with hundreds of pounds more waste than the company’s permit allowed. But Grossman “elected” to go ahead, the inspector reported.

The company also was cited at least three times for operating incinerators during projected second stage smog alerts, a violation of district rules.

Cited for Emissions

In January, 1982, when the company was cited for excessive emissions of particulates, an inspector said Stephen Grossman told him: “Go ahead, shut us down. . . . We’ll just pile it up (on) your doorstep.”

An air district memo written in the same year alluded to a “long history of smoke, fly-ash and particulate emission violations, and the company’s failure and/or resistance to improving the operation.”

A July, 1985, memo stated that it was “obvious from the record that the company has operated for years either marginally in compliance or out of compliance. We can no longer ignore this problem.”

Violations continued piling up. In February, 1986, the district’s hearing board issued an abatement order requiring immediate operating improvements at Garden Grove and Long Beach, and ordering the permanent shutdown of the old Garden Grove units by the following fall.

Despite the abatement order, the company sometimes overloaded the incinerators, resulting in more air emission violations, district records show. Inspectors also noted discrepancies between temperatures they read on gauges and those reported in company logs.

Closed Incinerator

The company permanently closed the Garden Grove incinerator in April, 1986, but continued operating at Long Beach--where at least 15 violation notices were issued in 1986-87.

AQMD was not the only agency concerned about the firm. In 1987, the California Waste Management Board cited the Long Beach incinerator for failure to maintain enough working fire extinguishers, failure to adequately protect employees from exposure to infectious waste, and numerous other infractions. Board inspectors also observed emission-control equipment that “was held together with duct tape,” according to an inspection report. A follow-up inspection showed major improvements, but some areas of the plant were still “in a very filthy state.”

Meanwhile, the company had replaced the Garden Grove incinerators with an autoclave, or steam sterilization plant, at the Vernon site where the hazardous waste burner is planned.

Here, again, there were problems. “Overall, the place was a mess,” Vernon health officials told the state Department of Health Services, according to an October, 1987, document.

About the same time, the California Highway Patrol postponed an inspection of the firm’s waste-hauling trucks because the cargo beds “were observed to have loose hypodermic needles and a fluid which appeared to be blood,” according to a Highway Patrol memo.

Lacked Certificates

Inspectors also noted that the company lacked some transportation certificates needed for hauling infectious waste. According to a Highway Patrol memo, an unidentified company spokesman “stated he ‘had a business to run and will operate the vehicles anyway.’ ”

While all this was happening, the company was slowly accumulating the permits needed for the Vernon hazardous waste burner. In February, 1987, the air quality district issued construction permits, with a declaration that no environmental impact report was required for the project. The city of Vernon followed with a conditional-use permit.

In September, 1988, the state Health Services Department granted a permit, also ruling there was no need for an environmental impact report. In November, the EPA also granted a permit. Earlier this month, the project suffered a setback when the air district reversed itself and ordered an environmental study--a decision now under appeal by the company.

Air district officials said they were well aware of the company’s record when they issued its permits.

“Legally, we are required to consider applications on the technical merits and to write permits that will result in compliance with our rules,” said Kelly, the district spokesman. “We cannot deny a permit to someone based upon other factors than that.”

Lacked Information

On the other hand, EPA and the state Department of Health Services apparently knew little or nothing about the Garden Grove incinerators that closed two years ago.

Two letters to the state agency, filed as comments on the permit request, had raised concern about the company’s regulatory past. In its formal, written response to public comments, dated Sept. 6, the Health Services Department discussed violations at Long Beach, but did not acknowledge that there had been a Garden Grove plant--much less that it was cited most often and ordered shut down.

Department engineer Steve Baxter--who prepared the response with the help of the air district--said he must not have received any data on the Garden Grove problems.

Although he “never really looked into” the subject, Baxter termed it largely irrelevant.

He said the difference between the older incinerators and the sophisticated Vernon waste burner is considerable. Permit conditions for the Vernon incinerator are “the most stringent” he has ever seen, Baxter said. Among other things, he noted, the company is being required by the EPA to furnish a computer terminal for use in monitoring the incinerator’s performance.