Worm Farm Owner Wins a Reprieve : Waste disposal: County had ordered the facility to close and get composting permits. Now new rules are in the works.

The owner of a Ventura County worm farm whose business was about to be buried beneath a pile of bureaucratic red tape has managed to wriggle out of the mess.

Guided by a recent state ruling, county officials had ordered Richard Morhar to shut down The Worm Concern near Simi Valley until he obtained permits required of large composting plants.

But an official with the California Integrated Waste Mangement Board said Friday that the agency has decided to grant Morhar an 18-month reprieve until the agency can come up with new regulations for businesses like his. Morhar’s worms eat grass clippings and other yard waste that cities want diverted from landfills. The worms turn the waste into plant fertilizer that is then sold.

Although the waste management board ruled in September that Morhar’s worm farm should be regulated as a composting facility, it never intended to put him out of business, said Robert Conheim, the board’s chief counsel.

Conheim said the agency is willing to work with Morhar because his business helps reduce the flow of trash into landfills, which is a high priority of the state.

Morhar said he is happy with the reprieve, but he still insists The Worm Concern is a livestock business, not a composting facility.

“The state made a mistake,” said Morhar, who voluntarily closed his business before it was required. “Now they’re doing what they should have done in the first place instead of letting this thing get blown out of proportion.”

Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), who asked the board to reconsider its ruling on The Worm Concern, said Morhar’s situation is “a classic example of bureaucracy” at work.

He said while the state does everything it can to encourage recycling, it also imposes stringent requirements that make it extremely difficult for businesses to do so.

“We’re reaching a point in California where we have so many overlapping regulations that businesses are damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” he said.

Morhar, who began the worm farm in his back yard in Thousand Oaks, moved his business this year to a 16-acre site downhill from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

In the past five months, the cities of Simi Valley, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks have sent 3,660 tons of yard waste to Morhar. That earns the cities credit under a state law that requires cities to recycle 25% of their rubbish by 1995 and 50% by the year 2000.

Although the company was helping the cities meet their recycling goals, it was not popular with everyone. Some county residents had complained about noise, dust and unsightly wood piles on the property, said Terry Gilday, a county environmental health supervisor.

Conheim said the waste management board will recommend that county officials apply health and safety conditions to Morhar’s business until it is determined how it will be regulated.

Morhar said since he has been closed, he has been working to resolve the problems. He said he plans to reopen his business within a week or two.