LONG BEACH : Plan to Burn Seized Drugs OKd by City Council
The Long Beach City Council has approved a request by the California Department of Justice to allow law enforcement agencies to burn about 50,000 pounds of seized drugs each year at the city’s trash-to-energy plant on Terminal Island.
The state has a backlog of illegal drugs--those no longer required as evidence in court--because cocaine and other drugs were classified several years ago as hazardous substances requiring special disposal, officials said.
Officials said testing has shown that burning drugs at the Terminal Island facility will cause no adverse health effects, not even an odor.
“You could climb up on the stack and lean over the edge and not get a thing out of it,” said Jim Kennelly, project director at the waste-to-energy facility. “There will be no detectable narcotics in the stack.”
Kennelly said law enforcement officers, not plant employees, will handle the drug destruction. He said he expects the first load of drugs to be destroyed before the end of the month.
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