County to Use 21 Criteria to Cut Down List of Toxic Sites

About 70 areas throughout Orange County could be considered for toxic waste disposal or treatment facilities, and many of them are in populated areas, according to the county’s newly revised hazardous waste management plan.

But a 21-point list of requirements, which must first be met before such a facility would be allowed, is expected to preclude such a facility in all but a handful of locations, according to the plan’s coordinator, Karen Peters.

The county now has no facilities to treat or dispose of about 104,000 tons of toxic materials generated by local businesses.

The plan’s siting criteria will enforce a land-use standard to protect properties, Peters said.

The plan, released Friday, was commissioned by the Board of Supervisors 3 years ago after such studies were mandated throughout the state. The Tanner Advisory Committee, under Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-El Monte), works with county supervisors to help develop and organize the plan.

Revamped Plan

The county’s first draft, completed last March, met with complaints from the state Department of Health Services and has been revamped into the present draft proposal. The present plan is designed to map out general rules private businesses must follow when applying to build such toxic treatment or disposal plants.

The new guidelines include strict requirements for businesses before they set up disposal plants. The new rules also make the plan’s first priority a reduction in the amount of hazardous materials produced.

But environmentalists said that the county would be wasting time and money on a plan that still endangers the soil and that planners should instead focus on reducing toxic waste production.

But several environmentalists and other officials declined to comment on specific points, saying they had not had a chance to read the two-volume plan.

Dave Bunn, environmental program director for CalPIRG, the California Public Interest Research Group based in Los Angeles, remarked on the overall effect toxic waste facilities have had throughout the state.

“We’ve gone,” Bunn said, “from basically dumping hazardous wastes into unlined pits to injecting toxic materials into the ground in the toxic injection wells. Now, the next big push is to burn or dump them into something else. “Rather than spend all of this money on lining a hazardous pit, we should spend it on trying to reduce the amount of hazardous materials we have.”

Peters, manager of the county’s Hazardous Waste Materials Program, said reducing the production of hazardous materials is one of the plan’s major goals.

“We built the plan on looking at waste reduction and saying that these are our area’s needs,” she said. “On the one hand, waste reduction is a primary goal, but at the same time we have to treat those wastes that aren’t amenable to waste reduction.”

Nancy E. Kimble, a Tanner committee member representing environmentalists, said the panel “really tried to follow all environmental rules as we could with this program. The treatment plan would have lots of protection for residents and other facilities.”

One of the plan’s major siting criteria is to designate a 2,000-foot sensitive zone with health and safety requirements that must be met before a facility may be built. The guideline--revised from an earlier 2,000-foot arbitrary zone, protecting only residences--includes residences as well as businesses, schools, hospitals, convalescent homes, jails and similar facilities within the area of potential impact.

“The criteria process makes very stringent requirements for businesses,” Peters said, “and while it doesn’t preclude for facilities, it doesn’t make it easier to set up facilities, either.”

However, she said, the proposed plan may be too strict under state Department of Health Services (DHS) standards. The department criticized the program’s first draft because its restrictions were deemed too rigid.

“The DHS said they wanted us to demonstrate that our criteria are non-exclusionary, and not saying that you can’t build anything in Orange County,” she said.

The present plan redefines the problems found in the first draft, lessening the limits on land-use and clarifying siting criteria, Peters said.

The County Board of Supervisors will vote on the plan at a Jan. 25 hearing. If accepted, the DHS will vote on it. Half of the county’s city councils must also adopt it within 90 days; city hearings will be set up throughout February and March.

The plan has received continued city and county support, so Peters hopes that the proposal will be in good standing with DHS.

With the state’s only two toxic waste dump sites expected to close by 1990, there is an urgency for new methods to curb the buildup of hazardous materials, Peters said. The number of facilities will be determined by economic and environmental impact and the amount of hazardous waste generated in the county.

About 5,600 county businesses and industries already produce 104,423 tons of hazardous materials a year. Even with new technological processes of waste reduction, the number is expected to grow to nearly 185,000 tons within 10 years.

Most of the waste produced from both small and large industries is transported to landfills in other counties, and as far as Arkansas, for disposal.

“It behooves us to work with neighboring counties to set up these facilities (rather than) on our own,” Peters said. “This is a problem that faces us all. In order to alleviate it, we have to deal with it collectivity.”

CRITERIA FOR WASTE SITE

The Orange County Hazardous Waste Management Plan, 1988, has established these 21 criteria:

Health and safety assessment

Distance from populations

Flood plains

Earthquakes

Unstable Soils

Containment and ground water monitoring

Water quality

Waste water

Air quality

Wetlands

Animal and plant habitats

Prime agricultural lands

Recreational, cultural and aesthetic resources

Mineral resources areas

Military lands

Proximity to waste-generation areas

Proximity and access to major routes

Consistency with general plan

Fiscal impact

Socioeconomic impacts

Consistency with hazardous waste management plan

HAZARDOUS WASTE OUTPUT BY CITY

5,643 industries generated 104,423 tons of hazardous waste in the county in 1986. The 25 largest generators accounted for 51% of the total industrial tonnage. Household hazardous waste accounted for just 3% of total hazardous waste.

City % of industrial total Anaheim 35.2 Santa Ana 16.9 Irvine 9.5 Orange 5.1 Newport Beach 5.0 Huntington Beach 4.3 Fullerton 3.8 All other 20.2

Source: Orange County Hazardous Waste Management Plan, 1988