SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S ENVIRONMENT At the Crossroads : Waste: <i> THE DISAPPEARING SPACES FOR TONS OF TRASH</i> : HEAD<i> Landfills near capacity as alternative disposal methods are explored.</i> : Mounds of Garbage and More to Come

Men in “moon suits” have become a familiar sight in the back yards of a Westminster housing tract. Long before the 75 homes were built in the 1960s, acidic petroleum wastes were buried there. A black, coal-like substance eventually began oozing to the surface. It seeped into swimming pools and lawns and even appeared under an old carpet in one family’s living room. The sludge, state health authorities say, is corrosive and may contain potentially cancer-causing chemicals.

Gloria Delzeith, 47, who has lived at the Orange County tract since 1978, recalls returning home from the hospital in May after treatment for severe asthma, a condition she developed two years ago. Workers in special protective clothing came two weeks after her release from the hospital to sample the soil in her back yard.

“When they dug over by the back fence, they had to back away,” remembers Delzeith, an electronics inspector. “The odor was very intense. They didn’t have their respirators on, but when they smelled it, they put them on.” The white-suited workers warned Delzeith to stay out of her back yard.

Her situation, as horrifying as it sounds, is not unique. Southern California is afloat in garbage, much of it toxic. As health officials try to grapple with old waste sites, sanitation officials are looking to build new dumps. The region’s landfills are running out of room, and Southern Californians are continuing to generate mountains of garbage. Recycling may eventually reduce the flow, but not before more dumps are added or current sites expanded. Already, plans are under way to create three hazardous dumps in the desert, one on land proposed for national park status. Officials are also considering transporting household garbage by train to the desert, filling inland canyons with it, even shipping it to the South Pacific.

Progress Slow

The most troublesome part of the garbage picture is toxic waste. Hazardous dumps cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take decades to clean. State officials have identified 12,700 abandoned toxic waste sites in Southern California, 84 of them on state or federal Superfund cleanup lists. Progress toward cleaning them has been agonizingly slow, and many communities are growing impatient. Despite a tripling of cleanup staff and a doubling of funds, the Deukmejian Administration completed cleanups at only seven sites from July 1, 1988, to June, 1989. Frustrated residents who live on abandoned petroleum wastes near the beach in Oxnard have taken to putting skulls and crossbones on their roofs to protest the government’s sluggardly pace. Others, such as the neighbors of Riverside County’s Stringfellow acid pits, are filing class action suits against chemical dumpers.

In the meantime, communities near toxic dumps report nagging ailments they suspect may be related to hazardous substances buried there. Residents near Stringfellow, where solvents, acids and pesticides were dumped until 1972, complain of a bewildering array of health problems, including respiratory ailments, rashes, tumors, neurological disorders and learning disabilities in children. A family that lived in the Westminster tract moved a year ago because all five of the children were suffering from respiratory problems. Although state officials say the sludge poses immediate harm only if it is touched, residents of the Orange County community are frightened. Jerrel Haynie, 47, says his 23-year-old daughter suffers mysterious headaches and other pains. For years, he grew vegetables in his back yard. “We always ate a lot of the vegetables--who knows?” said the engineer, his voice trailing off. Aside from health fears, Haynie worries about his pocketbook. “I’ve got almost $100,000 in equity in this house,” he said. “It’s my retirement. If I get stuck and can’t get out, I don’t know what I will do.”

To prevent such conflicts in the future, hazardous waste management officials want to take toxic garbage to the most remote reaches of the desert. A proposal to create a low-level radioactive waste dump in the eastern Mojave Desert’s Ward Valley is expected to win formal state approval next year.

Located between the Turtle Mountains to the east and the Old Woman Mountains to the west, the valley is largely untrampled desert, dotted by yuccas, barrel cactus, jack rabbits and rattlesnakes. All this would disappear. Two repositories for hazardous wastes have also been proposed in a region east of Barstow. Under one of the proposals, 450,000 tons of waste would be buried in concrete or steel silos in the secluded Hidden Valley in the Cady Mountains, a site proposed to become part of a new national park. Residents in the nearest town are furious. “This is an untouched valley, a natural place,” said Melody Owings, 23, who lives in tiny Newberry Springs, 15 miles from the dump site. “There are so few places like this left, I just hate to see this one lost.”

So-called sanitary landfills aren’t much more popular. Aside from their offensive appearance and odors, these repositories of household garbage pose dangers of their own. They contain hazardous materials from the paints and batteries that residents nonchalantly toss out with their household trash. Some landfills are leaking and threatening precious underground water. They also produce flammable gases, most notably methane. In 1983 and 1985, methane gas leaks from the Sheldon-Arleta landfill in the San Fernando Valley forced school closures.

Despite such problems, the abundance of household trash is forcing officials to look for new dumping grounds. A coalition of San Gabriel Valley cities and the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County are studying four proposals to transport trash by train from Los Angeles County to San Bernardino and Riverside counties. “It doesn’t surprise me that they are trying to get away with this,” said San Bernardino County Supervisor Jon Mikels, who represents a portion of the desert. “If you could solve a problem and have another county feel the impacts of that solution, wouldn’t you do it?” The Riverside Board of Supervisors has been more receptive. The county’s waste management director called a proposal to dump the waste in an old abandoned mine in the county “pretty attractive.” The garbage would fill the mine, now an eyesore, and could be used for the county’s trash too.

If these plans falter, the trash could be dispatched to the Marshall Islands. The South Pacific nation has expressed interest in a proposal to use West Coast garbage to fill in reefs and provide footing for causeways connecting islands. “One person’s garbage can in reality become another person’s treasure,” touts Admiralty Pacific, a company that wants to ship 35 billion pounds of West Coast garbage to the islands. Not surprisingly, environmentalists oppose the idea. Greenpeace contends that the plastic liners that would hold the garbage would inevitably leak, poisoning irreplaceable reefs.

Because of such potential problems, incineration of garbage is gaining renewed interest. State prison officials have proposed putting a plant that would convert trash to electricity at a San Diego County prison. Eight-hundred inmates would be paid 50 cents an hour to sort through tons of garbage each day. Prison officials admit that the plan faces significant hurdles, however. When other such plants were proposed in the past, concerns about health dangers doomed them. Dioxins and lead come out of the stacks, and the emissions contribute to smog.

Few of today’s garbage problems were foreseen in 1961, the year Sam Yorty ran for mayor of Los Angeles and made the highly popular pledge to end curbside separation of trash. Homeowners at the time had to separate wet trash and place it on the curb one day for pickup, burnables on another day, glass and cans on still another. Three years after Yorty’s pledge, on July 3, 1964, the era of combined collection began, providing the promised convenience to homeowners and businesses but laying the groundwork for today’s crisis. The plan was considered environmentally safe, and other Southern California communities followed suit.

Planners now are trying to turn back the clock. There is a consensus that Southern Californians at the very least will have to resume separating trash for recycling or composting. Under a new statute, signed by Gov. George Deukmejian in September, local governments will have to reduce garbage 25% by 1995 and 50% by the year 2000, primarily though voluntary recycling, composting and reducing trash sources. Compulsory programs and higher costs for garbage disposal are likely to follow. Eventually, some state legislators would like to see fees levied against retailers or distributors of certain wasteful products, such as fast-food packaging.

Several Southern California communities already have voluntary curbside recycling programs, but these are not likely to reduce garbage significantly in the near-term. In Riverside County, for example, $800,000 a year has been earmarked for recycling projects, “far short of what’s needed to do the job right now,” said the county’s director of waste management. There are 15 recycling programs in San Diego County, including an ongoing effort by San Diego to implement curbside recycling citywide. In those neighborhoods with recycling, more than 50% of the homeowners participate. A waste management firm has developed a coloring book called “Captain Recycle” to teach children the value of recycling. “Captain Recycle wants us all to have a clean, green and drug-free America,” concludes the book.

But the job is more than just to persuade homeowners to separate their trash. Government and sanitation officials must also find markets for the garbage. Paper mills, for instance, must convert to technology that will enable them to use recycled newspaper, which is now piling up at recycling centers. Uses for so-called “green waste” must also be found. In San Bernardino County, a consultant is studying how to grind up lawn cuttings, tree clippings and other plant material for mulch that could be used for erosion control. In Orange County, which generates more solid waste per person than any county in the country, officials are preparing a plan to compost plant wastes and sell it to golf courses, nurseries and cities. “It’s a marketing issue,” said Frank Bowerman, Orange County’s director of waste management. “We’ve got to sell the idea before it works.”

REPORT CARD

Average score: 5.3

Three views on our progress, rated on a one to 10 scale

* Mark Murray, policy director for Californians Against Waste: “The writing has been on the wall in terms of the need for recycling and source reduction for a long time in Southern California, yet we haven’t seen the region as a whole move very fast with programs to deal with the problem.” Score: 3

* John Gallagher, chairman of the California Waste Management Board: “There has been a certain level of indifference on the part of local governments and county planners in including the siting and location of landfills . . . They have not required enough attention to be paid to it by developers.” Score: 5

* Z. Harry Astor, a lobbyist for the southern district of the California Refuse Removal Council: “Part of the problem has been the so-called ‘Not In My Backyard’ syndrome, with people in various areas demanding restrictions on expansions of landfills. But I think industry has done a good job. Whenever it has been economically feasible, industry has engaged in recycling and source separation and has complied with the technological problems involving toxic waste disposal.” Score: 8

TURNING POINTS

* 1990--San Bernardino County supervisors will decide whether to approve two proposed hazardous waste dumps, one in the secluded Hidden Valley in the Caddy Mountains and the other near the town of Ludlow.

* 1995--New state law requires local governments to reduce their communities’ garbage by 25%, primarily through recycling, composting and source reduction.

* 1996--Unless more landfills are added or disposal of garbage declines, Southern California’s dumps will be filled.

* 1999--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expects to have cleaned up Fullerton’s McColl Toxic Waste Dump, Orange County’s worst hazardous landfill.

* 2000--Communities must cut the amount of garbage they generate by 50% under new state law.

VOICES

“The first thing, you know, is it gives me a little money, and I like to help clean up the whole environmental schmear. If I get maybe a couple hundred pounds of paper, maybe I can save one big tree. Those are the main reasons. It doesn’t make me rich; I barely get gas money out of it.”

--John Simon, 71, of South Pasadena, who each week collects newspapers and aluminum cans in his neighborhood and delivers them to a recycling center in Alhambra.

“I think we should get hazard pay. We’re out there dealing with hazardous materials day after day. I have seen stuff that is so foul that just by smelling it you get sick. I have seen dead animals in the can. You name it--cats, dogs. I had one can with a dead rooster in it. People throw out a lot of hazardous materials that we are not supposed to take, but people get away with it. . . . It’s just disgusting--battery acid, car parts, roofing material. Skin rashes are very common among us, and so is eye irritation.”

--Jeffery Taylor, 31, Pasadena trash collector

TECHNOLOGY’S PROMISE

Although Southern California is quickly running out of room to bury its solid waste, here are some methods and technologies that can ease the problem:

* SOURCE REDUCTION and RECYCLING--These are two of the most practical and promising methods of reducing waste. Source reduction basically means manufacturing goods that last longer and making them with less toxic materials. More cities are requiring residents to recycle their newspapers, bottles and aluminum cans. Both methods will be required increasingly in years ahead.

* COMPOSTING--Composting is making a comeback. One third of all residential waste is yard waste or “green waste.” Instead of burying it in a landfill, it is collected and composted by solid waste companies and local governments to make a type of fertilizer for public golf courses, highway median strips and schools. There is one drawback: Large acreage is required.

* PYROLYSIS--The chemical decomposition of a substance by heat is expected to play a role in waste management in the next five to 10 years. Waste such as tires, food, plastics and leaves are placed in a large container and closed. Air is pumped out to remove oxygen and replaced with an inert gas. The container is then heated, much like a pressure cooker. The waste does not burn, but the heat causes it to break down, generating gases such as methane and carbon monoxide which can be used as fuel. The solid residual material also can be used as a fuel.

* REFUSE DERIVED FUEL--RDF can be made from many types of solid waste. Unburnable waste such as cans and bottles are removed, leaving paper, plastic and other burnable waste that are compressed and cut into “fuel pellets” about the size of charcoal. RDF energy content is 27% less than coal but 37% higher than garbage. Air pollution emissions are comparable to those from burning coal. RDF can reduce solid waste volumes at landfills by about one third.

* GAS RECOVERY--Any time trash and garbage are buried, methane gas is formed. Methane is a potent “greenhouse” gas contributing to global warming. Increasingly, this gas is being tapped by pipe systems at landfills and used as fuel to generate electricity, or is burned off. When completely burned, methane is converted to water vapor and carbon dioxide, which is a less potent greenhouse gas. Burning also destroys small concentrations of air toxics, like vinyl chloride and benzene, which can cause cancer.

* BIOMASS--Waste is put into a closed container and water and bacteria are added to accelerate generation of methane gas. This technique was used to generate cooking gas 1,000 years ago by the Chinese. Today, it is a way of disposing of both solid waste and sewage sludge.

LANDFILL CAPACITY

* Southern California’s landfill capacity has dropped sharply in just the last four years.

* Capacity is expected to drop in the 90s. In one case, California Waste management Board estimates that Los Angeles County will run out of landfill space by 1994.

* Unless capacity is added or the rate of waste generated declines, the Waste Management Board estimates Southern California will run out of capacity by 1996.

SOURCE:California Waste Management Board