City, Industry Back Waste Disposal Plan : New Companies Will Be Required to Obtain Conditional-Use Permits

In an action that appeared to win the blessing of environmentalists and industry executives alike, the San Diego City Council agreed Tuesday to establish a special review and permit process for companies that treat hazardous waste.

Voting unanimously, the council decided after a public hearing to require firms seeking to establish toxic waste management facilities in San Diego to first obtain a conditional-use permit, an often lengthy process that can result in limitations on a company’s operations.

Existing companies--there are nearly 40 treating hazardous materials in the city today--will be exempt from the new law. Any major expansion or modification to those businesses, however, would require the special permit.

The new process represents the first substantial move San Diego has made to exercise control over the operation of such increasingly common facilities within its boundaries. Previously, local companies handling hazardous waste merely needed the applicable state and federal permits to open their doors.

Tuesday’s vote had added significance because of its effect on a controversial proposal by a La Jolla company to operate an experimental toxic waste incinerator amid the eucalyptus trees near UC San Diego.

Plans to Market Idea

Ogden Environmental Services Inc. wants to use a 16-inch diameter circulating bed combustor to burn contaminated soils, solvents and sludges at a minimum temperature of 1350 degrees Farenheit. Ultimately, the company hopes to market the technology commercially.

In February, Ogden received an experimental permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conduct test burns on 365 operating days or over five calendar years, whichever is shorter. During each test series, no more than 150 drums containing 55 gallons of waste could be burned. The state Department of Health Services has tentatively endorsed the project, although a final decision is not due until the end of the month.

Opponents, including numerous La Jolla residents and local environmentalists, have argued that La Jolla is an inappropriate place to burn hazardous materials and have protested the state and federal government’s decision not to require an environmental review of the incinerator’s effects.

At a minimum, critics have argued, some local review of the incinerator’s effect on the surrounding community is in order.

On Tuesday, the council agreed it has a role to play in the regulation of Ogden and the flood of other companies likely to enter the hazardous waste treatment business in the coming years. As a result, the La Jolla company’s proposal will undergo scrutiny by city planners, who will evaluate, among other things, whether it is compatible with existing land uses in the area and determine its effect on the public health and safety.

Process Shortened

Typically, such a process can be a lengthy one. But on a request by Councilman Bill Cleator, the council directed city planners to expedite the permit process for Ogden and ensure the incinerator proposal is back before the City Council within 90 days.

“This is something I feel very strongly about and I’d like it to come before the council while I’m still being paid by the citizens of San Diego,” said Cleator, whose term expires in December.

Critics of the toxic waste incinerator said they were pleased that a local review of the proposal would be conducted but expressed regret that the council had not adopted a more stringent version of the ordinance favored by the city Planning Department.

Under that scenario, firms engaged in research-oriented hazardous waste treatment would be subject to an additional set of procedures outlined in a state law designed to guide the siting of toxic waste facilities.

“I think this is a victory, we only wish they had gone one step further,” said Diane Takvorian, executive director of the nonprofit Environmental Health Coalition. “At least we have the assurance that there will be some sort of local review, and that was our basic goal.”

Ogden Confident

Ogden’s representatives, meanwhile, said they had nothing against the new conditional use permit requirement--so long as their application was put on a fast track. David Mulliken, an attorney retained by Ogden, said the critical need for new technology to treat and dispose of the nation’s growing volume of toxic waste makes a speedy approval process for experimental devices imperative.

“Go to the Stringfellow acid pits or the McColl dump site in Orange County and ask those residents whether they want quick solutions to their waste problem,” Mulliken said. “I know what they’d say . . . We need to develop this technology now with no more delays.” The new ordinance marks the city’s first stab at addressing a dilemma that likely will grow more vexing in coming years: How to deal with locally generated hazardous waste in a way that in and of itself poses no threat to the public health.

“We will undoubtedly have to have facilities to deal with hazardous waste here in San Diego,” said Robert Brocato, a senior planner for the city. “The key is to site them and manage them in a way that ensures there is no threat to the public health.”