Accord Reached on Plan to Cut Landfill Waste Disposal

Legislative leaders announced Wednesday that they have reached agreement with Gov. George Deukmejian on a plan to require local governments to reduce the amount of garbage going into landfills by 50% before the year 2000.

The announcement came after Deukmejian and party leaders from the Senate and Assembly ironed out an agreement that would give the governor two appointments on a six-member commission being proposed to oversee the new waste disposal plan.

Final Elements

Makeup of the commission was one of the last unresolved issues standing in the way of the solid waste plan. The final elements of the agreement now will be amended into a bill to be carried by Assemblyman Byron D. Sher (D-Palo Alto). Sher said he hopes to have the bill ready for a Senate vote today.

Earlier, the leaders had agreed to emphasize recycling in the bill but provide for the burning of waste if local governments cannot reach their waste reduction goals.

Environmentalists are strongly opposed to the use of incineration but won a partial victory by getting the negotiators to agree to place a moratorium on burning during the first five years of the program. Incineration would be allowed only if local governments can show that they would be unable to meet the 50% reduction goal after trying for five years to dispose of garbage through recycling and other measures.

The question of who will sit on the commission was more difficult for the negotiators to resolve. They finally agreed to a plan that would allow Deukmejian to appoint two of the six members of the board and the next governor to appoint another two.

Lawmakers had been reluctant to give Deukmejian four appointments because his term expires at the end of 1990, only six months after the board would be created.

The remaining two seats on the six-member board would be filled by the Assembly and Senate. The Senate will be allowed the right to reject the nominations of two of the four gubernatorial appointments.

‘Reasonable Board’

“I think you are going to have a reasonable board,” Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) said after leaving Deukmejian’s office.

Environmentalists have criticized plans for the six-member commission on the grounds that the even-numbered commission would produce too many 3-3 splits and make it necessary to garner four votes in order to pass anything.