Audit Reveals Cost-Cutting Possibilities at Landfills : Budget: County, facing huge shortfall, finds it can save $1.65 million yearly by cutting hours, limiting public access to dumps.

County government, faced with one of the biggest budget shortfalls in its history, can save $1.65 million a year by shortening landfill hours, limiting public use and making dozens of other changes in trash operations, according to an audit filed Wednesday.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, whose eastern county district includes three of the county’s four landfills, said the changes are “doable” and appear to have the support of the full Board of Supervisors. The board is scheduled to approve the report at its weekly meeting on Tuesday.

The changes are seen as a way of combatting a drastic rise in the cost of running the county’s $120-million-a-year waste management system, an increase caused in part by tougher environmental regulations. The county now faces a $93-million shortfall for all its operations.

But several independent trash haulers in the county cautioned Wednesday that reducing hours of operations at local landfills could result in higher costs to customers.

The $239,000 audit by the accounting firm of Ernst & Young explored ways in which the Integrated Waste Management Department could be restructured to cut costs. The bulk of the audit’s more than 60 recommendations center on consolidating departments and services. But several key savings would also affect the public and the trash industry.

Among the proposed changes:

* Reducing the number of attendants who let commercial and public haulers into the county’s four landfills. There is now virtually no wait to get into the landfills, the study found. Cutting 14.5 positions would result in a delay of an estimated 45 seconds and could save the county nearly $100,000 a year.

* Eliminating public access to three of the county’s four landfills--the Brea/Olinda facility on the county’s northern border, the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill east of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and the Santiago site, near Irvine Lake.

The public now brings an average of 71 vehicles a day carrying trash to the county’s landfills, at a flat rate of $5 per car or $10 per truck. Those people instead would have to use transfer stations to dump their waste.

Since there are no stations near the Prima Deshecha landfill in the San Juan Capistrano area, this site would be kept open to the public, said waste management spokeswoman Cymantha Atkinson.

Restricting public access could save $584,000 per year, the study estimated.

* Shortening the hours of operations at the landfills by an hour or two on some days in order to generate $773,000 in annual savings.

Larry Siegel, a partner with Ernst & Young in Irvine, said the audit found that the landfills were vastly underused at some times of day. A review of one month’s activity at the Bowerman landfill, for instance, found that virtually no trucks used the dump on Saturdays between 4 and 5 p.m.

“Why stay open if no one’s going to use it?” Siegel asked.

But Stan Tkaczyk, vice president of Rainbow Disposal in Huntington Beach and a member of the county’s Waste Management Commission, which will review he recommendations, said he is concerned by the prospect of less access.

“Cutting an hour will affect us,” he said. “We only have so many hours in the day to pick up trash and take it to the landfills.”

While Tkaczyk had not yet seen the report Wednesday, he said the shorter hours could force haulers to buy greater-capacity equipment--then pass the costs on to their customers in the form of higher pick-up fees.

Bill Taormina, a North County hauler and also a member of the waste commission, said he is anxious to see the report to determine how it will affect his company and its customers. With shorter hours available at landfills, he said, “certainly our efficiency wouldn’t be as great.”