Cleaning Up the Waste Operators

When a firm proposes to build a hazardous waste facility, it would seem common sense that it should have a background suggesting that it deserves to be trusted with such a sensitive venture. At the least, it should not have a record of violating public safety and environmental laws.

Incredibly, that assumption has not been reality, as has been demonstrated in a controversy that erupted last year when residents of Vernon discovered that the company that had received permits to build the state’s first full-scale commercial hazardous waste incinerator there had been cited dozens of times for health and safety violations at infectious waste incinerators in Garden Grove and Long Beach. Current law allows the state Department of Health Services to check into the firm’s environmental record when deciding whether to grant an operating permit, but the department has not been required to so so.

Now, if a bill by Assemblywoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles) is signed by the governor, the Department of Health Services will be required to review the compliance record of hazardous waste companies. The department would have to provide public notice of the permit application, including information about a company’s environmental history. Similarly, air pollution control districts, in Southern California’s case the South Coast Air Quality Management District, would be authorized to evaluate past violations by the company and deny permits based on recurring violations. But the burden is fair, since the air quality district could still grant the permit if the emission violations could be shown to be beyond the control of the company, if the violation were minor or if the company acted to correct the problem in a timely manner. It is a responsible bill that should become law.