Plant to Pay Fine Over Excessive Burning of Waste

The operators of a controversial cement plant near Gorman have reached a settlement with the state under which the plant will pay a $350,000 fine for burning excessive amounts of hazardous waste as fuel, the state Department of Health Services announced Thursday.

National Cement Co. of California, which owns the plant, and the Systech Environmental Corp., which supplies the hazardous waste, could have been fined up to $1.28 million for the 127 days of violations cited by the state between October, 1988, and October, 1989.

The plant is the only one in California permitted to burn hazardous waste as fuel in the cement-making process. The state’s November, 1989, complaint alleged that the plant burned amounts of hazardous waste that exceeded permitted limits during the yearlong period.

The plant was permitted to burn up to 1,200 gallons per hour of hazardous waste--solvents, paints, inks and other chemical waste--but the state alleged that the plant burned up to 1,867 gallons per hour.

However, the settlement did not resolve the question that originally focused public attention on the plant: whether its emissions are responsible for health problems reported by dozens of residents of the nearby Three Points area in the northern Antelope Valley. State health officials said they are still studying that question.

Under the settlement, the companies did not admit guilt. But National Cement President Don Unmacht said in a statement that the violations were due to the plant having two permits with slightly different burning limits, and the plant not holding to the stricter of the two. The state alleged that the plant also violated the other permit.

The agreement requires the plant to continue burning hazardous waste at its current reduced level--no more than 25% of the heat needed in the cement-making process--until a new health risk assessment and other studies are completed by the company. The plant can then return to its permitted 40% level.

The fine is the largest of several levied against the plant. In a separate case, National Cement recently agreed to pay $5,000 to the Kern County Air Pollution Control District for burning an improper fuel. Last fall, the company paid the APCD $100,000 for violations similar to those later cited by the state.