Local Activists in Scrap Over Relocation of Shipping Firm : Environment: Port officials contend that Hiuka America can operate in Wilmington without adverse effects. Opponents wonder why an environmental impact report was not done.

In a report that sparked outrage among Wilmington activists, the Port of Los Angeles has declared that moving a controversial San Pedro scrap yard to Wilmington would not have any significant environmental consequences.

The conclusion, reached in a 45-page report, could help pave the way for Hiuka America Corp. to win a 30-year lease from the Los Angeles Harbor Commission for a new scrap metal shipping facility at Berth 147 in the port’s West Basin. The proposed 13-acre facility would replace Hiuka’s current operation in San Pedro, one that has drawn so much criticism from the community that Los Angeles officials have taken steps to declare it a public nuisance.

Although the proposed Wilmington facility would not allow shredding of scrap and would include more environmental safeguards than the San Pedro site, representatives of Wilmington’s largest homeowner groups contend that the port’s report shows contempt for their community.

“It’s a joke,” said Gertrude Schwab, president of the Wilmington North Neighborhood Assn. “If it’s a public nuisance in San Pedro, why wouldn’t it be in Wilmington?”

Added Jo Ann Wysocki, president of Wilmington Home Owners: “I am disgusted with the port. That’s about the strongest word I can use and still remain in good taste.”

Wilmington activists plan to turn out Thursday when the port sponsors community meetings on the report at the Wilmington Multipurpose Center, Pier A just west of Fries Avenue. The meetings will be from 10 a.m. to noon and from 7 to 9 p.m.

The report, released June 12, follows months of community debate over relocating Hiuka from its present facility at 2000 N. Gaffey St. to another site in the harbor area. Hiuka began searching for a new site early last year, when Los Angeles zoning officials moved to sharply restrict or even close its San Pedro scrap yard because of complaints about dust, noise and traffic.

Those complaints led harbor-area City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores to push for restrictions on Hiuka’s operations, and prompted Hiuka and the port to begin talks about moving from San Pedro. But as the new report concludes, other sites were deemed either unsuitable or not immediately available for Hiuka, which hopes to move its operations from San Pedro in the next two years.

Under the plan endorsed by the port’s environmental study, Hiuka could open a new scrap exporting facility at the now-vacant Berth 147 without significant environmental problems because of a series of restrictions on operations.

The report concludes that such a facility, unlike Hiuka’s San Pedro scrap yard, would not pose the same potential environmental hazards because it would not allow the actual shredding of autos and other recyclable metals. Instead, the Wilmington facility would serve only as a shipping point for Hiuka’s scrap, estimated at about 650,000 tons per year.

Moreover, the report contends that any environmental problems with noise, dust and ground contamination would be offset at the Wilmington site. The Berth 147 project would be modeled after Hiuka’s new Long Beach facility and would feature a host of environmental safeguards including 30-foot-high sound walls, 12-inch-thick concrete flooring and a water-spray system to control dust.

“Our overall goal here was to develop a project that anticipated any environmental problems and to either modify the project or attach conditions that would modify its impact,” said Don Rice, the port’s director of environmental management.

Rice said Hiuka’s history of controversy in San Pedro as well as the port’s own troubled experience in dealing with another scrap yard tenant, Hugo Neu Proler, sharpened harbor officials to the possibility of environmental hazards.

“We are certainly tuned in to the fact that in scrap metal, without proper environmental controls, you can have problems,” he said. “So we are certainly not missing that lesson in history.”

But Wilmington activists and the principal of a school only a mile from the proposed scrap yard site raised doubts about the thoroughness of the port’s analysis.

In decrying the report, Wysocki and others complained that the port did not launch a full environmental impact report on the proposed Hiuka project. Instead, it issued a so-called “negative declaration” report that concludes that the project’s potential environmental problems can all be offset through various measures.

“It is the height of irresponsibility on the part of the port . . . to say that no EIR is necessary when you have 650,000 tons of junk coming through a facility every year,” Wysocki said.

Claire Randall, president pro tem of the Los Angeles Harbor Boatowners Assn., agreed, declaring that the 600-member association was shocked and disappointed that the port did not require a full EIR on Hiuka’s proposed relocation.

“For over a year, we have been told that the proper forum for voicing concerns and objections was through the EIR process. Now it seems that this process is to be denied to the community,” Randall wrote Wednesday in a letter to Harbor Commission President Ronald Lushing.

Further, Hawaiian Avenue School Principal Tommye Keenan raised concerns that the report might not have fully addressed the potential health hazards of locating a scrap facility so near the campus, which serves 1,400 children from preschool to sixth grade.

“My concern continues to be the possible impact on the school, not just from noise pollution but from airborne dust. And what is in that dust concerns me,” Keenan said.

“I was not for or against the project. I was just seeking information, and we didn’t get it,” Keenan said. “And if they feel it is not necessary, I would like to know why.”

Although the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce and a citizens advisory committee on waterfront development had previously endorsed Hiuka’s move to Berth 147, representatives of both groups said this week that their support was conditioned on a favorable environmental report on the project. Whether the “negative declaration” satisfies that condition remains to be seen, according to the chamber’s Lois Denzin and George de la Torre, president of the citizens advisory committee.

It was also unclear whether Flores, who supported Hiuka’s move from San Pedro, would now oppose its proposed relocation to Berth 147. Flores could not be reached for comment about the port’s report.