Central Los Angeles : Neighbors Seek to Close Waste Facility

The smell is bad enough, but what really bothers residents near a hazardous waste storage facility in Athens is the fear that dangerous fumes are wafting out of high concrete block walls despite assurances from company officials that the facility poses no health risk.

Neighbors say that pungent, chemical-laced fumes drift over the walls of the storage facility into the homes and yards of their mostly working-class neighborhood, causing headaches and nausea.

Statewide Environmental Services maintains that the odors are more an inconvenience than a health risk. Company officials say they have taken steps to reduce the smells from the waste, which includes “extremely small percentages” of such lethal substances as benzene, arsenic and cyanide.

A multi-agency county task force that inspected the facility found a number of minor violations of its county operating permit but no “immediate health or safety threat to the public.”

But residents want the facility out. The county Planning Commission is reviewing the facility to determine whether it has become a public nuisance, which could lead to revocation of the company’s local operating permit.

But the facility has stalled the review with a lawsuit, saying the commission cannot lawfully hold a hearing to revoke the permit unless it has evidence that the facility has become a health hazard or public nuisance.

That has forced the commission to postpone a second public hearing on the matter. The first one on May 17 drew hundreds of residents. Meanwhile, a court hearing on the lawsuit has been delayed while county and company officials discuss a settlement that could lead to relocating the facility.