EPA Will Halt Kiln’s Burning of Wastes : Gorman: The promised federal action against National Cement is a victory for desert environmental activists.

In a victory for a small but dedicated band of desert lovers, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday that a cement company will be ordered this week to stop burning hazardous waste at a kiln near Gorman.

The promised EPA action is the latest round in a long-running battle between Desert Citizens Against Pollution, an environmental group, and National Cement Co. of California, which burns spent, hazardous solvents in the kiln to generate heat needed in the cement-making process.

“We’re delighted,” Stormy Williams, of Desert Citizens, said Tuesday. “We’ve worked long and hard on this, ever since 1989, when we found out what they were burning” at the kiln site near the Los Angeles-Kern County line.

“We’re a very small group with no money,” added Williams, who lives in Kern County, about 35 miles from the incinerator. “But we’re like desert tortoises--just aim us and we go slow but sure until we get there.”

National Cement and previous operators of the kiln have conducted two businesses on the site for a dozen years--making cement and burning hazardous waste. The EPA has said the incinerator is the only operating commercial hazardous waste burner in California.

“This is an area of high winds,” Williams said. “One of our biggest worries about the incinerator has been dioxin,” a toxic substance. “One of its favorite ways of traveling is to hook onto other particles blowing in the wind.”

In a report released in May, EPA scientists concluded that the wind-borne dioxin could harm fetal development and immune systems. Many of the scientists’ conclusions were based on animal studies.

Virginia Donohue, spokeswoman for the EPA’s San Francisco office, said that office “would definitely issue the order within the next few days” against National Cement and Systech Environmental Corp., which receives and processes hazardous waste at the kiln site.

“They will then be required to stop burning the waste within two weeks after we issue the letter,” Donohue said.

National Cement is a unit of Vicat, a large French cement concern. Lafarge, another large French cement maker, owns Systech Environmental.

The latest move by the EPA follows its refusal Friday to hear National Cement’s petition appealing the agency’s earlier attempt to stop the company from burning hazardous waste.

In that decision, which came in March, the EPA denied National Cement a permit required for it to burn the waste.

Given those earlier setbacks, National Cement’s chief operating officer, Michel Plagnol, said the EPA’s Tuesday announcement was not a surprise.

Plagnol said the company will appeal the order to the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. He added that the firm will also seek permission to keep operating the incinerator until the court acts on its appeal.

The court is expected to hear National Cement’s appeal before the ban would go into effect.

Plagnol said the appeal is probably National Cement’s last resort in a long and bitter dispute that has also involved Tejon Ranch Co., which owns the land where the kiln is. Tejon Ranch is about 30% owned by Times Mirror Co., publisher of The Times.

Two years ago, National Cement came close to an agreement to buy the 240-acre kiln site from Tejon Ranch. That agreement fell through in February, 1993.

Plagnol said National Cement and Tejon Ranch were still discussing a possible sale. But he said he doubted that a deal could be worked out soon.

“We have not been able to reach an agreement for quite a long time,” Plagnol said. “So I don’t think it would be possible to achieve that within the next coming weeks.”

Dennis Mullins, Tejon Ranch’s general counsel, denied that the two companies were still in negotiations over the kiln site.

“They (National Cement) said last July they were no longer interested in buying the land,” Mullins said. “They have not told us any time since then they have changed their minds and are now once again interested.”