ANAHEIM : Junkyard’s Waste Pile Being Removed

In a last-ditch bid to stay open, a junkyard and recycling center accused of creating a 50,000ton pile of potentially toxic waste trucked away 100 tons of the material Monday.

The owners of Adams International Metals, while defying orders from the city to shut down, pledged to continue the shipments each week at a cost of $10,000 as long as they are allowed to remain open.

“This is a case of too little too late,” said Assistant City Atty. Selma Mann, who oversees the city’s efforts to close or clean up the site. The firm “has always had the obligation to remove the pile,” Mann said. Her office will continue to work to force closure of the yard, she said.

It would take about seven years to eliminate the pile by removing 100 tons of waste each week, officials said. The material is being shipped to a toxic waste landfill in Kettleman City, in the San Joaquin Valley north of Bakersfield.

“I hope that the city of Anaheim will allow us to operate in the interim while we remove this pile,” said George Adams Jr., who owns the company along with his family. “The city wants to get the pile out of here, and I want to get the pile out of here. It is taking up valuable space that I could be putting to better use. This pile has become my worst nightmare.”

Adams reiterated his vow to fight the city in court “for years” if it tries to close the business.

The pile of shredded automobiles and appliances contains high levels of PCBs, a chemical believed to cause cancer, and lead, cadmium and other heavy metals that could cause harm if they were to seep into drinking water.

The pile was accumulated between 1984 and 1986 during a period when the state temporarily banned the shipment of certain metals to common landfills. After the ban was lifted, the company was not allowed to ship the waste because of the discovery of a high level of PCB contamination.

Until recently, the Adamses had said that it would have cost more than $30,000 a week to ship the pile to a hazardous waste landfill, which they say they could not afford.

City officials revoked the company’s operating licenses, saying that the Adamses had been promising for years to remove the pile, which is 25 feet tall and covers 1.5 acres, only to renege.

The pile caught fire in 1988, spewing potentially toxic smoke into a nearby neighborhood. The company’s 15-acre site is next to the Riverside Freeway at 3200 E. Frontera Road, about a mile east of the Costa Mesa Freeway.

It sits directly above one of central Orange County’s main ground-water basins. “We don’t believe there is any significant risk to the public during the next five years,” said EPA Project Manager Denise Yaffe, who monitored Monday’s removal. “But 10 or 15 years from now, if nothing is done now, (the pile) could cause some damage” to the water and nearby neighborhoods.

Watching the loading of the first truck was Councilman William D. Ehrle, who has voted twice to close the facility. He said he was not sure whether the company’s current attempts to remove the hazard would change his vote.

“I’m always willing to listen,” he said. “It would be irresponsible not to.”