Sludge Watch ==> LA Sanitation prepares to sue Kern County

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

The sludge bullies of Los Angeles are arming themselves for a fight at 
public expense.
They seem to think that the  industries  and toilet flushers of Los Angeles 
have a right to put
their sewered wastes on the lands of their  unwilling northern agricultural 
neighbors in Kern County.

If the "Sanitation" experts of Los Angeles love their toxic turds this much 
(remember their claim: We could bag it and sell it at grocery stores" )  why 
don't they smear it on their own yards and parks?

.......................................................................

http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/67747.html

L.A. officials put up money for lawsuit
BY GRETCHEN WENNER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: gwenner at bakersfield.com

Monday, Aug 14 2006 10:55 PM


Los Angeles officials have approved at least $600,000 for a legal fight 
against Kern's sludge-banning initiative -- the one voters here soundly 
approved in June.

Los Angeles City Council members in May approved funds for hiring two 
outside legal firms to sue Kern County over the ban.

Last week, the city attorney approved a contract totaling $850,000 for the 
lawsuit, online records from the city's Web site show, although it was not 
immediately clear late Monday afternoon whether additional approval is 
needed.

Officials from the city attorney's office and the city's sanitation bureau 
-- which will be the entity suing Kern -- could not immediately be reached 
Monday.

Attorney James Slaughter of Washington, D.C.-based law firm Beveridge & 
Diamond, P.C. said he was not authorized to comment on the matter.

Thomas Hixson, a lawyer at the San Francisco office of the other law firm, 
Bingham McCutchen, also declined any comment.

Hixson filed an extensive public records request with Kern County late last 
month. He asked for, among other things, details of all sludge-related 
communications between any county employee and state Sen. Dean Florez -- the 
man who spearheaded the anti-sludge initiative -- since April 1, 2005.

Beveridge & Diamond has close ties to the sewage sludge industry and 
previous success overturning local sludge regulations. The firm successfully 
represented a subsidiary of industry giant SynagroTechnologies, Inc. in a 
2003 federal case in Pennsylvania. It also helped overturn local sludge 
restrictions elsewhere that year and in 2004, according to news releases on 
the firm's Web site.

Slaughter and Synagro's general counsel co-presented legal defense 
strategies for land application of sludge at a 2003 conference.

The law firm's roster includes former top administrators and attorneys from 
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other former government 
regulators.

The EPA wrote rules for use of sewage sludge as fertilizer and now promotes 
the practice.

David Price III, who oversees several Kern County departments involved in 
sludge permitting and regulation, said the impending lawsuit "isn't 
unexpected."

"It's unfortunate they would try to thwart the will of the people in Kern 
County, who spoke pretty clearly on the sludge initiative," Price said.

County staffers will enforce and "vigorously defend" the ban, which gave 
sludge applicators about six months to shut down operations in Kern.

The upcoming legal battle, he added, will divert county staff time and 
dollars from other problems that need to be addressed.

Florez, the Shafter Democrat, said the voter-approved initiative has firm 
legal footing.

"I think on this one they're going to lose in a very big way," he said.

The request for correspondence between him and county employees "just 
screams out desperation," he said.

"They're looking for nuances that somehow point to the fact we were working 
together on this thing," Florez said.

Measure E earned a "yes" from more than 83 percent of local voters June 6. 
The measure bans use of sewage sludge as fertilizer on county land.

The city of Los Angeles trucks 99.9 percent of its treated sewage sludge to 
land it owns south of Bakersfield.

Los Angeles and Orange counties, along with other Southern California sewage 
districts, also truck some or all of their sludge to Kern, where it is used 
as fertilizer for crops mostly fed to dairy cows.

Those districts must now find another disposal outlet for their sludge.

Some face higher costs as well as resistance from towns and counties who 
don't want the stuff trucked in.