Local News in Brief : Countywide : County OKs Drop Sites for Hazardous Wastes

The Board of Supervisors Wednesday unanimously agreed to create a series of special collection stations to receive and dispose of household hazardous wastes.

The collection stations are an attempt to discourage illegal dumping of common hazardous materials such as paint, solvents, automobile oil and household cleaners. Two of the collections sites will be at existing county landfills in Brea and San Juan Capistrano. The county will contract with private facilities to operate four other stations in Anaheim, Stanton, Huntington Beach and Irvine.

The pilot program would cost about $1.2 million a year. To pay for it, county officials have proposed a 25-cent-a-ton surcharge on trash deposited at county landfills.

The supervisors also approved a series of fee changes aimed at offsetting the costs of the planned closings of the Coyote Canyon landfill south of Irvine and the Santiago Canyon landfill east of Orange later this year, and the simultaneous opening of the Bee Canyon Landfill, northeast of Irvine.

Under the plan, the basic landfill fee on July 1 will rise from $11 per ton to $13.75 per ton, which includes the surcharge. Fees for individual trucks using the landfills will increase from $4 to $5 a load, but the rate for individual cars would remain at $3 per load.