Incinerator Gets Interim Manager : Waste: Former landfill consultant leaves redevelopment board to correct flaws at $152-million plant.

LONG BEACH — James Kennelly, a former landfill consultant, has taken over as manager of the city’s beleaguered trash incinerator for one year to allow the current manager to fight a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over whether the plant was properly built.

Kennelly, who resigned his position on the city’s Redevelopment Agency board of directors, will be responsible for correcting the flaws and frequent breakdowns that have kept the $152-million plant from receiving a full permit from the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Known as the Southeast Resource Recovery Facility, or SERRF, the plant is one of two trash-to-energy incinerators in the county. It was built on Terminal Island in 1988 to provide an alternative to landfill dumping but has experienced frequent breakdowns.

Environmentalists also have loudly decried it as a health hazard, alleging that the plant emits toxins as it burns trash to produce electrical energy.

The city has sued the Dravo Corp. of Pennsylvania, which built the plant, contending that it did not complete the job it was contracted to do. Dravo countered by suing the city for failing to sign off on a project they say is finished.

The city stands to recover some $50 million if it wins and could pay out twice that if it loses in court, said Councilman Warren Harwood, co-chairman of the SERRF Joint Powers Authority Board.

“The lawsuit is huge, it’s precedent-setting, it’s been filed on both coasts and there is a lot of money at stake,” Harwood said. “We may be able to sell the movie rights to this one.”

Kennelly, a native of Long Beach and a self-employed landfill consultant, is under contract to manage the plant for one year in place of Bill Davis, who will help attorneys for the city prepare for what promises to be a complex and highly technical court battle.