State Waste Board Warns County to Clean Up Its Act

The California Waste Management Board unanimously voted Thursday to strip Los Angeles County officials of their powers to enforce health and safety standards at 83 county trash dumps and transfer stations if county health officials do not toughen their approach during the next month.

If the state board follows through with its action, it will be the first time since the board’s 1973 formation that it has stripped an agency of local control, said board spokesman Chris Peck.

The board’s vote represented the toughest action it could take because state waste management laws require a 30-day notice before any powers can be taken away from local agencies.

Board Chairman John E. Gallagher said he hoped the threat of such drastic action would be enough to persuade the county Department of Health Services to step up its enforcement.

“We have just gone through a period of time where people thought we just rubber-stamped things,” Gallagher said. “That just isn’t true. Please take that message back with you, that we are dead serious about getting this thing straightened out.”

During the past few months, the board has become increasingly critical of the county department’s activities, particularly concerning the Los Angeles-operated Lopez Canyon Landfill. The county has refused to enforce some aspects of a stringent state order limiting operations at Lopez Canyon, which is located in the northeast San Fernando Valley and receives two-thirds of the city’s residential trash.

All parties involved agreed that it would be an administrative nightmare for the state board to oversee local dumps and locations where refuse is stockpiled and transferred from truck to truck. The board has an office in Fullerton, but Gary King, chief of that division, said he would need more staff to handle updating permits and frequently inspecting the 83 locations.

“I don’t think that’s something that’s been fully thought out yet,” Peck said. “But if we have to do it, we’ll do it one way or another.”

The meeting Tuesday drew representatives of other California counties, who said they were concerned that they too might lose local control to the state.

Several of them said state intervention actually could mean less careful scrutiny of trash disposal--because the board’s regional offices are widely spread--and could end up being more costly to counties. Counties would end up paying for the state’s enforcement services, Peck said.

Expert’s Assessment

“You need to be there to see that the problems are solved,” said Richard Pantages, solid waste administrator for Alameda County. “You don’t need to send letters and nasty notes and stuff--that’s what the state does.”

Charles W. Coffee, who heads Los Angeles County’s solid waste management program, said he was disappointed that he had failed in his efforts to convince the state board that his inspectors are doing a good job.

Coffee criticized as inaccurate a waste board staff report that listed 26 transfer stations and nine dumps where violations are allegedly occurring.

The state waste board report recited a litany of problems, ranging from dumps being permitted to take more trash than allowed under their state-issued permits to failure to complete permit reviews every five years. One of the state staff members who helped prepare the report, Lisa Dernbach, said that most of her evidence came directly from Coffee’s inspectors’ reports.

But Coffee conceded that in numerous instances the county had not kept the waste board informed of its enforcement actions. He said he would work on improving that communication during the coming weeks.

“It’s partly a staffing problem,” Coffee said after the meeting. “And other things got in the way, like Lopez Canyon Landfill. It has taken up most of my time the last three to four months.”

Fumes Fell 2

Although neighbors of Lopez Canyon have complained about noise, odors and litter at Lopez Canyon Landfill for years, the state turned its spotlight toward the dump in March, when two workers fainted after they unearthed some toxic fumes while digging into decaying trash. In June the state issued a strict order calling for the city to scale back operations there, but the city is fighting that order in court.

Many observers of Thursday’s meeting blamed politics for forcing the board to take a tougher-than-usual stance.

A Little Hoover Commission report released earlier this summer chastised the board for being too cozy with the waste disposal industry and several pieces of pending legislation seek to create a new board with more public representation. Currently two board members have direct industry ties.