Old Farm Is Mushrooming Into Model Recycling Project

HUNTINGTON BEACH —  The rubble of demolished storage sheds, jackhammered concrete slabs, and whatever else remains of an old mushroom farm is finding an unusual use.

At the site of the 1920s-era farm on Golden West Avenue, massive machinery has been moved in to convert demolished buildings into mounds of shredded wood and pulverized concrete to be recycled.

The extensive recycling project will net a profit for the wrecking firm, help the city save money and even help rebuild the city pier.

City officials said they also are weighing a proposal to establish a semi-permanent facility to recycle discarded material from various construction projects, which could generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for the city.

Through those combined efforts, “we could have the biggest recycling program in the state,” Mayor Thomas J. Mays said last week. “We want to be a model for other city programs throughout the state.”

Leveling the mushroom farm near Ellis Avenue is costing the city about $270,000 less than the $593,000 it originally budgeted, because of sales of recyclable materials and avoided transportation and landfill costs, city engineer Robert Eichblatt said.

The effort is producing about 15,000 tons of crushed base concrete, much of which will be used in construction at the site, where the city will relocate residents from an adjacent mobile-home park.

The rest of the concrete product will be sold as material to be used in street construction and repaving, said Dennis Patton, project specialist for Pomona Valley Environmental Inc., the Chino-based firm the city hired to demolish the farm.

The estimated 400 yards of wood chips will be sold as fuel for steam cogenerating plants, and the more finely ground wooden debris can be used for city landscaping and mulching, he said.

Additionally, Pomona Valley Environmental also plans to donate $1 for each ton of recycled material--totaling between $15,000 and $50,000--to the city’s pier reconstruction fund, Patton and city officials said.

The company also is lobbying to set up a recycling center in the city. City officials are currently studying a Pomona Valley Environmental proposal to move the recycling equipment now at the mushroom farm site to a 5.8-acre county transfer station to recycle waste materials from development projects throughout west Orange County. The facility would be coordinated with a household rubbish recycling center being established there by Rainbow Disposal Inc., the city’s curbside trash collector.

The Pomona Valley Environmental facility would cost the city $1.8 million to set up, Patton said. But the city probably would recover those costs within the first few years of operation by collecting some percentage of the plant revenues, he said.