County Delays Vote on Human-Waste Composting Plan

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors postponed a decision on a proposal to make and sell compost from treated human waste after information surfaced on possible violations of state water quality rules at the project’s ranch site.

According to a letter from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, February’s rains caused flooding on the ranch near Lancaster, and may have caused sewage from an existing operation to flow off the property. Officials of the Bio Gro Division of Wheelabrator Water Technologies, which owns the property, failed to inform water quality regulators about the flooding, according to the letter.

“The applicant has once again violated water quality regulations,’ said county Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the High Desert area where the ranch is situated, and who strongly opposes the project.

Antonovich asked the board to put off its vote on the proposal for 30 days, to allow the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board to investigate.

Treated sludge is now used on the ranch in its wet, un-composted form, as a type of fertilizer.

The company--controlled by garbage collection giant Waste Management Inc.--is paid by the city of Los Angeles to take sludge from the Hyperion sewage treatment plant.

For the past several years, it has leased land on the Lancaster ranch to a farmer who has used the sludge on his fields.

The company has been fighting since 1992 to get approval for a 67-acre composting facility on the site in order to dry the sludge and sell it as a soil amendment. The project was turned down by the Regional Planning Commission in 1996, but the Board of Supervisors voted to approve it in concept last year.

The final vote had been scheduled for Tuesday, but Antonovich moved to put off the decision after receiving the letter from the water board that morning.

“On its face, the February 1998 incident that resulted in flood waters inundating portions of Soaring Vista Ranch . . . would have been a violation . . . “ the letter read.

Water officials cited the flooding March 4, and are investigating the incident and the company’s alleged subsequent failure to report it, the letter said. The investigation will be completed in two weeks.

At issue is whether waste products were washed off the property, or whether the sludge, which was applied more than six months ago, had worked its way into the soil and did not constitute a hazard.

At the board hearing, meanwhile, several nearby residents spoke in opposition to the project, and a neighbor showed a home video of the flooded fields.

R. Lyle Talbot, of High Desert Citizens Against Pollution, welcomed the 30-day delay.

“We’ve been at it for four years,” Talbot said. “Thirty days will give us more time to gather more information.”

The composting proposal has drawn criticism from several nearby municipalities, including Lancaster, as well as the Antelope Valley Air Pollution Control District.