Air District Orders Impact Report on Vernon Incinerator

In a key reversal, air quality officials have ordered an environmental impact report and tougher emission controls before a planned Vernon hazardous waste incinerator can be built.

The decision by the South Coast Air Quality Management District is a victory for foes of the project, which would be the state’s first full-scale commercial hazardous waste incinerator.

At the same time, the about-face is a serious setback for California Thermal Treatment Services, developer of the incinerator, which appeared to have the green light to begin construction next year. A company spokesman said the firm will fight the reversal, which could delay the project 16 to 20 months and add millions of dollars to its cost.

The incinerator would burn 22,500 tons of waste solvents, oils and sludges each year at a Bandini Boulevard site near the Interstate 5 and 710 interchange and four miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

The incinerator plan has been bitterly attacked by some nearby residents, officials and environmentalists as a case of an undesirable project being imposed on a low-income area. They have voiced fears that hazardous pollutants, such as dioxins, could be vented to the air and that trucks heading to the site could spill toxic loads.

But their anger had focused on decisions by the air district, and later the state Department of Health Services, to issue permits for the project without a full-scale environmental report. Critics contended that with less controversial projects getting full-scale environmental review, it was unthinkable to do less in the case of a hazardous waste incinerator in a heavily populated area.

Commenting on the decision, Assemblywoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles), whose district includes Vernon, said, “I think that’s wonderful. I think the AQMD is finally acting responsibly with regard to this issue.”

Developer’s View

“As we view it, the district does not have the authority” to impose the additional requirements, said Donald Bright, an environmental consultant and project manager for California Thermal. He said the firm will appeal to the district’s hearing board and, failing there, “file appropriate legal action” to overturn the decision.

The outcome could have implications for a disposal technology touted by some regulators as a wave of the future. Although incineration leaves hazardous ash, most of the waste is destroyed, avoiding the permanent risk associated with landfills. Moreover, under federal law, landfilling of untreated liquid hazardous waste will be virtually banned by 1990, aggravating a shortage of legal disposal sites.

The air district’s decision was contained in a Dec. 13 letter to California Thermal. It was written in response to the firm’s request for renewal of construction permits that are to expire Feb. 1.

The one-year permits were issued in February, 1987, after a declaration that a full-scale environmental report was not needed. Then the permits were renewed last February for another year.

But in last week’s letter, air district officials said they will not renew the permits again without an environmental impact report by an independent consultant; a revised and updated health risk assessment; and a demonstration that the incinerator would meet current emission control standards.

The letter cautioned California Thermal not to try to beat the Feb. 1 deadline by rushing to build. It said permit conditions require written approval of the district’s executive officer before construction can start.

In obtaining the original permits, California Thermal did file a risk assessment showing the incinerator’s emissions would not even cause one additional cancer per million people exposed--a standard regulatory guideline. But Robert Pease, a senior engineering manager with the AQMD, said that assessment was based on a narrow range of emissions. He said the new one must also consider higher emission rates than were assumed before.

Pease also said new guidelines requiring state-of-the-art controls on new pollution sources must be applied to the incinerator. This would mean better capture of traces of particulates and vapors the incinerator would emit.

Pease said the current permits allow the incinerator to discharge nearly 60 tons of pollutants per year. “This certainly is not a small source,” he said of the incinerator, although it “would pale in comparison” to an oil refinery.

On a ‘Learning Curve’

AQMD officials said criticism of the air district was not the reason for their turnaround. “We were on a learning curve at the time we issued the permit to construct,” said district spokesman Bill Kelly. “Things have changed, technology has advanced, we’ve learned more,” he said. An environmental impact report would have been ordered before “had we known what we know today.”

Bright said that in addition to appealing the decision, California Thermal will try to complete enough work to beat the Feb. 1 deadline. He said the firm is in the process of completing detailed site drawings, and has begun installing water lines and modifying a building at the site.

He said the 16- to 20-month delay would result from preparation of the impact report and risk assessment, and from the need to “modify every bloody permit” the firm already has received. This estimate also assumes “we would have the undivided attention of all these agencies,” Bright said.

He said better emission controls on the $30-million incinerator would mean $6 million to $12 million in extra costs.

The air district reversal is the latest twist in the tangled regulatory history of the Vernon incinerator. After the air district declined to order an environmental impact report, the state Department of Health Services reached a preliminary decision to require one. In September, the state agency reversed itself and issued a permit, saying that it had no legal basis, under the California Environmental Quality Act, to second-guess the air district, which had been the lead agency for the environmental review.

State officials also suggested that the project had been carefully analyzed through permit reviews and public hearings. In November, the federal Environmental Protection Agency served notice that it, too, would issue a hazardous facilities permit, which appeared to be the project’s last major obstacle.

The city of Los Angeles this fall joined with local legislators and a community group in a lawsuit to force the state Health Services Department to require an environmental impact report. In Los Angeles, “we’re doing EIRs for 100-unit apartment buildings and sometimes smaller projects,” said William Waterhouse, deputy Los Angeles city attorney.

But the latest decision may make that lawsuit moot.