Trash-to-Energy Plants Clear Key Hurdle : State Senate Committees Turn Back Attempts to Block Projects

Following the lead of their Assembly counterparts, Senate committees have rejected measures aimed at blocking construction of controversial waste-to-energy plants in San Diego County and elsewhere.

The Senate panels instead passed industry-sponsored measures this week that encourage construction of the high-tech waste incinerators, while promising that environmental and health concerns regarding them will eventually be addressed.

The so-called “Three Mile Island Bill” by Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim), which would have banned large plants near schools, hospitals, nursing homes and food processing plants, was voted down by the Senate Local Government Committee, despite a series of compromises and watering-down amendments that kept the panel deliberating until 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The Royce bill, as originally proposed, would have thrown an insurmountable roadblock in the path of the 60-megawatt Sander project in Kearny Mesa, proposed by Signal Environmental Services Inc. of San Diego.

Initially, Royce’s bill would not have affected the smaller trash-to-energy plant that North County Resource Recovery Associates proposes to construct at San Marcos.

But in its final amended form, the bill could have prohibited the operation of all 34 plants in various stages of planning in California until Jan. 1, 1988, or until state air quality officials complete studies and set standards for certain toxic pollutants the plants may emit.

The bill, which needed six votes for approval, failed on a 1-2 vote. Sen. William Craven (R-Oceanside), in whose district two San Diego County trash-to-energy plants are planned, cast one of the no votes.

Instead, the committee supported a rival bill by Sen. Joseph B. Montoya (R-Whittier) that would allow the plants but would require operators to update their anti-pollution controls as the state develops standards for such toxic pollutants as dioxins and furans. It was approved, 6-0, and sent to the Appropriations Committee.

On Tuesday, the Senate Governmental Organization Committee approved another industry-sponsored bill by Sen. Ralph Dills (D-Gardena) to weaken a requirement that waste-to-energy projects have guaranteed contracts for trash before they are given the green light. The Dills bill, which cleared the committee on a 6-1 vote and was sent to the Appropriations Committee, merely requires that sufficient rubbish for the plant “be reasonably assured.”

Montoya, whose district includes the Irwindale area where Miller Brewing Co. is trying to block construction of an 80-megawatt trash-to-energy plant, emerged this week as a key figure in the increasingly charged legislative debate over the planned incinerators.

Fearful that the pollution will damage its product, Miller Brewing has been leading the opposition to the plants. But the brewer has suffered a series of setbacks in its efforts.

Montoya’s measure is similar to one approved earlier this month by the Assembly Natural Resources Committee. That committee also rejected attempts to slow or halt construction of the high-tech incinerators.

“I don’t think Miller or anyone else related to any other project has thus far demonstrated that waste-to-energy technology is unsafe enough to warrant moratoriums,” Montoya said.

But Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), trying to derail the Sander plant “downwind from” his district, has proposed a moratorium on trash-to-energy plants until pollution studies are completed. Stirling’s bill, however, is pending before the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, which has twice voted against it. The bill is still alive only because of a parliamentary maneuver through which the second vote was erased--at least on paper.

Dennis Carpenter, a former Republican state senator from Orange County who is Miller’s lobbyist, said the brewery still hopes to tailor a bill that can win support in the Legislature this year--if merely to scuttle the Irwindale project.

“We just haven’t come up with the right language,” he said.

Stirling has said he hopes that the brewer and its lobbyists will become stronger backers of his bill now that several of their own have apparently failed.

Supporters of waste-to-energy plants admit that the energy crisis that prompted the technology has long since passed. But they say the high-tech incinerators are needed as an alternative to landfills for the 36.5 million tons of garbage Californians throw away annually.

The impact of the plants on air quality is at the heart of the legislative controversy.

The state Air Resources Board says it is still a year or more away from developing standards for potentially toxic pollutants that the plants may emit. “It’s uncertain territory,” Catherine E. Witherspoon, an air pollution specialist with the ARB, told the Local Government Committee.

However, Signal Cos. Director Frank Mazanec and other industry backers of trash-to-energy plant development say the environmental and health concerns are being overstated by opponents. And there are many in government who agree.

Stephen Forsberg, legislator coordinator for the state Department of Health Services, contended that his department feels “that there is state-of-the-art technology” that would “virtually” remove all hazardous products from the incinerators.

But Terry Kelly, Miller’s lawyer, told the committee that to allow plants to be built before the scientific community, especially Air Resources Board experts, develops standards for the pollutants would be a “tremendous mistake.”

In one of the most spirited environmental debates in recent memories, legislators this year have introduced 13 bills on trash-to-energy plants, advocating virtually every conceivable extreme on both sides, plus many positions in between.

While there are 34 plants planned, there is only a tiny experimental plant at Lassen College in Susanville that is operating in California.