ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Senate Panel Backs Plan to Let County Take Others’ Trash

A state Senate committee approved a measure Tuesday that would allow Orange County to quickly begin importing trash from neighboring regions, a key part of the county’s bankruptcy recovery efforts.

On a 7 to 0 vote, the Senate Governmental Organization Committee approved a bill by Sen. William A. Craven (R-Oceanside) that would waive state environmental reviews of the trash importation plan.

But the measure still faces a tough test in the upper house. As early as next week it heads to the Senate Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica).

Craven said he plans to weaken the bill before it reaches Hayden’s committee, which is dominated by environmentally minded Democrats. Among the changes being discussed are new language emphasizing that the county would redouble its recycling efforts and imposing strict limits on the volume of imported trash.

Those changes may not be enough to assuage the concerns of residents of San Juan Capistrano, whose streets would see an increase in traffic from trash trucks on their way to the Prima Deschecha Landfill from San Diego County. The landfill is one of three in Orange County.

At Tuesday’s hearing, San Juan Capistrano City Councilwoman Collene Campbell said bluntly that the plan, which could yield as much as $360 million in additional revenue, “seems to me a little bit like whoring yourself. . . . To ask us to accept other people’s trash . . . is ridiculous,”

She said the additional trash trucks would bring extra traffic, noise and safety problems to city roadways. Trash trucks pass within 60 feet of homes, gated communities and access roads to two different schools, Campbell said.

Craven and county officials, however, said the trash plan is one of the few ways Orange County can generate the revenues needed to pull itself out of bankruptcy.

They say the plan would have a limited environmental impact because trash trucks from San Diego County, which has a shortage of landfill space, currently roll through Orange County on their way to Los Angeles County landfills open to trash from outlying areas.

In addition, they contend, the increase from the current 10,000 tons a day to an anticipated 16,000 tons would hardly be dramatic. The landfills handled 16,000 tons a day as recently as 1989, but that level was reduced by recycling and a downturn in housing construction, which produces large amounts of debris, they said.