County Studies 10 Alternatives for Moving L.A. Trash to Remote Areas

The county Sanitation Districts are studying 10 proposals from major waste haulers, railroads and entrepreneurs offering to take trash from Los Angeles County to the desert by train to be recycled, buried or burned.

One company proposes to load 7,000 tons of trash a day on trains in Industry, Irwindale and La Verne and haul the waste 185 miles to an abandoned iron ore pit in Riverside County.

Another company would build a waste separation and recycling plant at Puente Hills landfill near Hacienda Heights and ship trash by rail to a plant near Victorville for processing into construction materials.

And a third company proposes to accept the rail-shipment of all the waste generated every day in Los Angeles County--45,000 tons--at a dump in Kern County.

Trash Exportation

The proposals were submitted to the county Sanitation Districts in response to a request for proposals for the design, financing and development of systems to export trash from Los Angeles County to remote areas.

The districts issued the request at the urging of the San Gabriel Valley Assn. of Cities, which began looking into the feasibility of rail-haul in 1986 as an alternative to trash-burning plants proposed in Irwindale, Puente Hills and Pomona. Environmental opposition killed the trash-burning projects, but cities have continued to pursue the rail-haul alternative.

A study undertaken by the Southern California Assn. of Governments last year found that hauling trash from the San Gabriel Valley to remote disposal sites by rail is “technically feasible and offers a potential solution to the solid-waste disposal crisis projected for the 1990s.”

The report by the regional planning agency noted that landfills in Los Angeles County are nearing capacity and that recycling is only a partial solution.

Presently, 58% of the county’s trash goes to landfills in the San Gabriel Valley and nearby Glendale.

Largest Landfill

The county’s largest landfill, Puente Hills, is so busy that it is often closed to trash trucks by noon because it has reached its daily permitted limit of 13,200 tons. Other landfills are also operating at capacity, and county officials have predicted that by 1992, the amount of trash being generated may exceed the available landfill space by 6,000 tons a day.

The Sanitation Districts are exploring six potential landfill sites in the county, but there are numerous obstacles, such as opposition from neighbors and stringent environmental regulations, which could delay or kill the projects. Thus, the Sanitation Districts have begun looking into the feasibility of shipping trash out of the county.

Charles W. Carry, chief engineer and general manager of the Sanitation Districts, said the rail-haul proposals received from private companies ranged from letters a few pages long to books thick with technical detail. Some of the proposals, he said, “are well thought out and rather complete. Others are little more than an expression of interest.”

His staff will evaluate the proposals and plans to report its initial findings to the waste management task force of the San Gabriel Valley Assn. of Cities on Tuesday.

Thomas Harvey, task force chairman, said he has not seen the proposals, but the fact that they have come from railroads and major firms in the waste disposal industry is encouraging.

“I was pleased with the extent of interest shown,” Harvey said.

Competitive Prices

What remains to be seen, he said, is whether trash can be sent to the desert for disposal at prices that are competitive with other options and whether such difficult problems as finding acceptable sites for loading the trains can be solved.

Some of the difficulties are already apparent.

Mine Reclamation Corp. has proposed building waste-loading stations in La Verne, Irwindale and Industry, and hauling 7,000 tons of trash a day by rail to a disposal site at Eagle Mountain in Riverside County. Gary Kovall, senior vice president and general counsel of Mine Reclamation, said the company notified La Verne, Irwindale and Industry of proposed train-loading locations. “I would not describe their reaction as one of open arms,” he said.

“Industry was the most open,” Kovall said. “Irwindale was negative, and La Verne was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ ”

Two of the proposed sites, along Southern Pacific railroad lines in Industry and Irwindale, were suggested in the study by SCAG. The third site, across from Brackett Field in La Verne, was found independently by Mine Reclamation. But Harvey, a member of the La Verne City Council, said the site appears to conflict with plans to develop a 103-acre research and development complex.

Kovall stressed that Mine Reclamation is not wedded to any particular loading site.

“We haved mentioned our interest in having about 10 acres in those areas,” he said. “But that is very preliminary. We have not made any steps to acquire real estate or anything like that.”

Existing Landfills

In fact, Kovall said, the better approach may well be to use existing landfills, such as Spadra in Pomona or Puente Hills, as sites to receive trash, separate glass, plastics, metals and other materials for recycling, and then compact and load the remaining waste into 20-foot-long containers that could be trucked to a rail line and loaded onto rail cars.

Kovall said his company is willing to explore a range of options with the Sanitation Districts or the cities that would be served.

Robert H. Collins III, president and chief executive officer of Mine Reclamation, said the location of train-loading stations will be based “on which municipalities want to go ahead and rail-haul to Eagle Mountain. There’s no point in having a transfer station in the east end of the San Gabriel Valley if you’re going to be moving waste from the west end or the north end.”

Mine Reclamation’s chief asset is its 100-year lease on 8,000 acres at the Eagle Mountain mine, near Desert Center.

The mine was opened in 1948 to supply iron ore to the Kaiser steel mill in Fontana and was closed in 1982.

Collins said the mine’s east pit is large enough to receive 16,000 tons of trash a day for 100 years. Kaiser Steel Resources, which owns the mine, would receive a portion of the trash disposal fee under its lease arrangement with Mine Reclamation. Mine Reclamation is a privately held corporation whose owners include Herzog Contracting Corp., a San Diego landfill management firm; EDCO Disposal, a waste collection company based in Lemon Grove in San Diego County, and Itel Corp., a Chicago firm that leases railroad cars and other transportation equipment.

Riverside Plan

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors has instructed its staff to negotiate an agreement with Mine Reclamation that would give the county a fee for allowing the importation of trash to Eagle Mountain. County officials said their approval of the project will depend on whether the landfill operation and rail-haul can be accomplished with environmental safety and whether it will benefit the area economically.

Some of the proposals submitted to the Sanitation Districts did not specify where trash trains would be loaded, but at least three of the proposals would serve the San Gabriel Valley.

International Technology Corp. of Torrance and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. proposed a system that would handle 6,000 tons of trash a day. The plan calls for processing waste at landfills at Puente Hills, Spadra, Calabasas and Scholl Canyon in Glendale to remove materials that can be recycled. The remainder would then be put in containers to be hauled by truck to Commerce and then by train to Adelanto and Needles in San Bernardino County. Plants in those desert communities would turn the refuse into fuel for factories or use it to generate electrical power.

Re-Use of Waste

Western Product Recovery Group of Escondido and Union Pacific Corp. proposed a plan for 3,500 tons of trash a day at Puente Hills landfill. A processing plant would be built at Puente Hills to separate materials for recycling and to process refuse into fuel. Some refuse would be shipped by truck to Commerce for transfer to trains bound for the Victorville area, where a plant would be established to produce construction materials.

Western Waste Industries of Gardena proposed a system to handle 12,000 tons of trash a day at a rate of $65 to $75 a ton, but asked that loading stations and disposal sites remain confidential. Browning-Ferris Industries of California did not specify loading stations or disposal sites, but estimated that it could develop a system that could handle 16,000 tons of trash a day at a rate of $60 to $90 a ton.

Sage Resources of Los Angeles and United States Borax and Chemical Corp. offered disposal sites in Kern County, but did not submit plans for hauling the trash there. Earth Technology Corp. of Long Beach proposed a Kern County disposal site that could handle 45,000 tons of trash a day.