EPA Rejects Appeal to Reconsider Its OK for Incinerator
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, rejecting an appeal raised by a public interest law firm, has affirmed plans by a California company to build and operate a hazardous waste incinerator in Vernon.
In denying the appeal, EPA regional administrator Daniel W. McGovern said his agency has “taken every precaution to ensure that the health and environment of the community is protected” from any dangers posed by the controversial incinerator, which would be the first in California.
Attorneys for the Western Center on Law and Poverty in Los Angeles had asked the EPA to reconsider its issuance of permits until an independent environmental impact study could be done. The EPA and state officials authorized construction of the incinerator in 1988.
However, in a statement released late Friday, McGovern said that such a study would have been “duplicative” of an environmental study done by a consultant to California Thermal Treatment Services Inc., the company that plans to build the incinerator in Vernon, about 3 1/2 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
On Saturday, Rep. Esteban E. Torres, (D-La Puente) issued a statement condemning the EPA’s decision.
“No one is proposing a toxic waste incinerator for the more affluent neighborhoods of Beverly Hills or Laguna Beach,” Torres said. “The San Gabriel Valley does not deserve to be the garbage dump for Southern California.”
The $29-million incinerator is expected to operate around the clock when completed in 1991.
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