Toxic Waste Plan Risks Farmland, Suit Alleges

The Sierra Club and a grass-roots environmental group filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that hazardous-waste management plans pushed by the state will turn rural, farming counties into dumping grounds for urban toxic wastes and industrial poisons.

The Tulare County Superior Court suit said Tulare County supervisors violated the California Environmental Quality Act in approving a hazardous-waste management plan on May 16.

Attorney Bob Wright, who filed the suit in Visalia on behalf of Visalia-based Citizens for a Healthy Environment and the Sierra Club, said agricultural Tulare County could be turned into a “dumping ground” for toxic wastes from the Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. He said such wastes should be taken to remote desert areas, not farming communities where ground-water protection is vital.

“We don’t want to see the urban areas dump on us,” said Marcie Williams, president of Citizens for a Healthy Environment. She said two hazardous-waste companies now want to build disposal sites in her county and others may follow.

At the core of the lawsuit is a dispute over “fair share” language in the county’s hazardous-waste management plan regarding how much toxic waste smaller, rural counties can be required to take from big, urban counties.

Tulare County supervisors adopted “fair share” language pushed by the state Department of Health Services.

The County Supervisors Assn. of California has proposed alternative “fair share” language supported by 42 of the state’s 58 counties.

Pam Milligan, legislative analyst for the supervisors association, said her group’s language gives county governments more control in determining whether hazardous waste dumps are built in their areas.

Tulare County and adjacent Kings County are the only counties supporting the state’s “fair share” language. However, Health Services Department officials have vowed to veto any “fair share” language proposed by the supervisors’ association.

Under recent legislation by Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-El Monte), all of the counties in the state must develop hazardous-waste management plans and most of them must be submitted by September.