PANORAMA CITY : Firm Drops Plan to Haul Earthquake Debris by Rail

A company that proposed hauling earthquake debris by rail from the vacant General Motors plant in Panorama City has given up on the project because of delays in obtaining city permits, a representative of the company said Monday.

ECDC Environmental, a Utah-based waste disposal firm, had planned to begin hauling quake rubble to its 3,000-acre landfill in East Carbon City, Utah, by July, said Kent Loest, the firm’s vice president for field operations.

But Loest said the firm was told in June that the city would consider the permits under its normal approval process instead of under a quicker emergency process approved by the mayor shortly after the Jan. 17 quake.

“By the time we would have the permits, most of the waste debris would be cleared away,” he said.

Lilian Kawasaki, general manager of the city’s Environmental Affairs Department, said the death of the project will not have a severe impact on the city because local landfills have enough capacity to accept all of the quake debris, and because the city is recycling as much of the rubble as possible.

Kawasaki said ECDC and other firms have not given up on the idea of hauling trash from Los Angeles by rail and are studying sites throughout the region for possible rail-hauling centers.