Trash Firm to Appeal Deadline of State Panel

Pacific Waste Management Corp. has decided to appeal a state Energy Commission order that set a March 31 deadline for the company to line up commitments from trash haulers to supply trash for its proposed waste-to-energy plant in Irwindale.

Pacific Waste attorney Steven A. Broiles said the trash contract requirement cannot be met and is “excessive and unreasonable.”

If the commission holds to the deadline established by its siting committee, Pacific Waste will be faced with the choice of having its application to build the plant rejected, accepting an indefinite delay in permit proceedings or taking the issue to court, Broiles said.

The deadline is contained in an order adopted by the siting committee, which is hearing Pacific Waste’s application to build a plant to burn 3,000 tons of trash a day, creating 73 megawatts of power for sale to Southern California Edison Co. The schedule lists a series of deadlines leading to a commission decision on the project by Feb. 18, 1987.

Broiles said Pacific Waste has several objections to the schedule, but its main concern is with the trash contract deadline.

Cannot Fully Analyze

Terry O’Brien, project manager for the Energy Commission, said the commission staff cannot fully analyze the Irwindale project unless it knows the source of the trash that will be burned.

For example, he said, the traffic impact from trucks hauling trash to the plant cannot be studied without knowing where the trucks will be coming from.

And, unless the source of the trash is identified, he said, the staff cannot determine if there might be a better location for the waste-to-energy plant or if there might be a better waste disposal method.

O’Brien said the staff cannot recommend a power project unless there is a reliable supply of fuel, in this case trash, to generate electricity.

Pacific Waste officials say they are confident that there will be more than enough trash for the plant, considering the dwindling capacity of dumps in the area. But Broiles said Pacific Waste cannot obtain commitments now because the opening of the plant is at least three years away and the prospect of obtaining permits from regulatory agencies is uncertain.

He said operators of waste-to-energy plants are required by state law to have waste supply contracts on file 120 days before a plant opens. It is not necessary to go beyond that requirement, he said.

Pacific Waste officials have contended that the project can be analyzed on the assumption that the waste will come from somewhere in the San Gabriel Valley.

The committee order instructs Pacific Waste to obtain commitments for 75% of the trash needed for the plant by March 31 and the remainder by June 15.

Can Reject Schedule

Pacific Waste can reject the new schedule and insist that the Energy Commission decide its permit application by May 28 under a state law that requires the commission to rule on applications a year after they are submitted unless the applicant agrees to an extension. But, Pacific Waste officials acknowledge that their project would surely be rejected on grounds of inadequate information if the commission were forced to make a decision by May 28.

Broiles said an appeal of the scheduling deadlines will be filed with the commission by Friday. The siting committee that approved the schedule is composed of two of the five state energy commissioners. The appeal will go to the full commission.

Meanwhile, the commission’s siting committee will conduct a hearing at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Irwindale City Hall on another issue that could suspend proceedings on the permit application.

Miller Brewing Co., which owns a brewery near the site of the proposed waste-to-energy plant and is fighting the project, has asked the commission to suspend proceedings because the project developers have withheld information.

Canadian Corporation

Miller attorney Terry O. Kelly said the commission’s siting committee issued an order last June requiring Pacific Waste to give Miller information about the project, such as how the site was selected and how decisions were made to proceed. But, he said, many of the documents are in possession of Pacific Waste’s parent corporation, Conversion Industries Inc., a Canadian holding corporation that claims to be beyond the jurisdiction of the Energy Commission’s orders.

Legal papers filed with the commission by Kelly urge the state to suspend proceedings to force the project developers to release the documents. “The commission cannot permit an applicant to set up a foreign holding company . . . and then claim that the records relating to the commission filings for the project are beyond the range of discovery,” the papers say.

But Broiles said Pacific Waste has refused to produce the documents not because it is trying to conceal facts but because it also wants Miller Brewing Co. to disclose information.

Will Ask Information

At Tuesday’s hearing, Pacific Waste will ask the siting committee to order Miller Brewing Co. and the city of Duarte to turn over information under discovery proceedings or lose their status as intervenors in the case.

Duarte and Miller are among 10 organizations and individuals who have become intervenors, participating in the Energy Commission’s permit proceedings by analyzing the project, raising issues at public hearings and filing documents.

Broiles said it is only fair that if Pacific Waste must open its files to critics of the project that it also have the right to gain information. Broiles sent a letter to the city of Duarte in December asking for detailed information about a closed dump in Duarte, the city’s waste disposal plans and copies of all documents and memos involving consultants hired by the city to analyze the trash-to-energy project.

Duarte City Manager J. Kenneth Caresio rejected the data request, saying that it was made “in bad faith and solely for the purpose of burdening and harassing Duarte and discouraging public participation by Duarte and other intervenors.”

Commission’s Attorney

Ernesto J. Perez, an attorney who serves as the Energy Commission’s public adviser, has issued an opinion that Duarte, Miller Brewing Co. and other intervenors can ignore Pacific Waste’s data requests.

The opinion says that “as a matter of law or public policy, the public has a broad right to know about the applicant’s project, and the public, which includes private citizens and local government, is not required to expose itself to the same level of inquiry as the party seeking (the permit).”

Broiles said the information he has requested from Duarte should be readily available as a matter of public record. He said his data requests to Miller Brewing Co. involve communications between the company and its consultants on the trash-to-energy project. He said the information is needed to find out whether the brewing company is disclosing information critical of the project while withholding favorable information.

But Miller’s attorney, Kelly, said Pacific Waste is seeking documents that are protected by attorney-client privilege and its request is too broad and burdensome. The intent, he said, seems to be to divert attention from Pacific Waste’s own permit application and to discourage anyone from becoming an intervenor in the permit proceedings.

Risk to Beer Drinkers

Kelly said Miller has provided some information to Pacific Waste, including facts about its brewery processes that Pacific Waste’s consultants used in calculating the health risk that the waste-to-energy plant might present to brewery employees and beer drinkers.

The first volume in a three-volume analysis of the health risks to be expected from dioxins and other pollutants released from the waste-burning plant was filed with the Energy Commission last week. Pacific Waste’s consultants said the amount of dioxin that would find its way to the brewery is so small that the health impact on brewery workers would be minute and the danger to beer drinkers, even those drinking 10 cans of beer a day for a lifetime, would be “immeasurably small.”

Analysis of Pollutants

The study also found little, if any, health risk to people living near the proposed waste-to-energy plant. The study calculated that a person living near the plant for 70 years would have a maximum cancer risk of 5.1 in 1 million. By comparison, the study, said, the cancer risk from eating a charcoal-broiled steak once a week for trhe same period is 28 in 1 million and from drinking a saccharin-sweetened diet soda every day is 700 in a million.

The health risk estimate was based on an analysis of 34 pollutants. Most of the health risk is associated with emissions of dioxins and chromium.