EPA Denies Permit for Waste Burner : Environment: Foes of the high desert facility applaud the decision. National Cement says it will appeal.

Making good on a threat, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday denied a permit for continued hazardous waste incineration at the National Cement Co. kiln.

If it stands on appeal, the decision will be a victory for longtime foes of the incinerator, described by EPA as the only operating commercial hazardous waste burner in California or three other states in the agency’s western region.

“We laud the EPA for doing the right thing and stopping this gross transgression of our desert environment,” said Joe Blackburn of Desert Citizens Against Pollution, an environmental group.

National Cement, which uses a blend of conventional fuel and spent solvents to fire the kiln, will appeal the denial to the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board, said the firm’s chief operating officer Michel Plagnol.

But Plagnol voiced pessimism, noting that the appeals board “is itself part of EPA . . . (and) may just confirm the decision which has already been made.”

The announcement caps a convoluted and increasingly bitter dispute between National Cement and its landlord, Tejon Ranch, that figured prominently in rejection of the permit.

For a dozen years, National and prior operators of the kiln have conducted two businesses at once--making cement and burning hazardous waste--on property leased from Tejon Ranch near the Los Angeles-Kern county line.

Since its old permit expired in 1991, National has been allowed to continue burning waste while state and federal authorities reviewed its renewal application. But it ran afoul of a federal requirement that owners of hazardous waste sites, as well as their operators, vouch for the accuracy of permit applications.

Tejon officials refused to sign the application, saying they took no part in preparing it and couldn’t truthfully swear to its accuracy.

To break the impasse, Tejon and National negotiated a tentative agreement on sale of the kiln site to National.

But National backed out, saying certain sale conditions were too onerous. The firm then asked EPA to waive the signature rule--arguing that it should not have to buy the property until assured all other aspects of the permit would meet with EPA approval.

However, EPA refused to continue reviewing the application without a landowner’s signature, and formally proposed to deny it last October.

In February, prior to the final decision, Tejon signed and submitted a modified statement of responsibility, saying it had done so under legal threats from National Cement.

The Tejon statement did not include the language specified by EPA requirements. “We don’t have any reason to believe the EPA will accept this new language,” Tejon President Jack Hunt said at the time. But at least “we can sign that language without perjuring ourself,” Hunt said. Tejon Ranch is about 30% owned by Times Mirror Co., publisher of The Times.

EPA officials on Thursday cited the unacceptable language as the reason for denial, saying Tejon had merely acknowledged joint responsibility for complying with federal hazardous waste rules.

However, the agency said, owners and operators also must “certify that . . . the application was prepared under their supervision; the information presented in the application is true and accurate; and they are aware of the significant penalties associated with submitting false information.”

The permit was denied because the “certification does not meet these requirements,” the agency said.

In some respects, the decision was “black and white” because of the “very explicit language” required for permit applications, said Jeffrey Zelikson, director of the hazardous waste division at EPA regional headquarters in San Francisco.

He said EPA chief Carol Browner’s call for tougher scrutiny of waste combustion plants made it harder still to give National “the benefit of the doubt on the signature thing. . . . We discussed that in the course of making this decision,” Zelikson said.

“The public has a very high expectation about how the agency is going to oversee these facilities.”

National Cement is a subsidiary of Vicat, a large French cement concern. At the kiln site, liquid wastes are received and prepared by Systech Environmental Corp., which is owned by the even larger French cement maker Lafarge.