Sludge Watch ==> LA Times: Hinkley: Here we go again?

[Maureen Reilly]

Hinkley: Here we go again?
Residents of the desert town featured in 'Erin Brockovich' are now battling 
a proposed sewage sludge composting plant that would be located eight miles 
away.
By Sara Lin
Times Staff Writer

December 11, 2006

HINKLEY, CALIF. - Ten years after activist Erin Brockovich swept through 
this high-desert town and helped force Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to pay a 
multimillion-dollar settlement for allegedly polluting the town's 
groundwater, residents say they're facing another serious health threat.

Sewage composting company Nursery Products wants to set up business eight 
miles outside of town, stirring up anxiety among families still coping with 
cancer and other serious illnesses they blame on a leaky PG&E natural gas 
pumping station.

"We're tired of being lab rats," said Mark Orr, 43, who takes a fistful of 
prescription drugs every morning because his thyroid gland had to be removed 
when he was 19. "My mother has cancer. My dad didn't make it. [Nursery 
Products] says we 'shouldn't' be affected by their operations, but 
'shouldn't' just doesn't work for me."

The Apple Valley-based company wants to compost sludge - the cake-like goop 
left over after raw sewage is treated at a sanitation plant - on 80 acres of 
Mojave desert outside Hinkley. Under the current plan, San Bernardino and 
Riverside counties could unload 400,000 tons of sludge per year.

But residents of Hinkley and nearby Barstow, which lie downwind of the 
proposed facility, oppose the project, saying it will be too close. They 
believe strong desert winds will whip noxious odors and bacteria-laden dust 
into the air, making people sick.

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors in the next few weeks is 
expected to consider the proposal, which was approved by the county's 
planning commission last month.

Board Chairman Bill Postmus, whose district includes Hinkley, said he was 
aware of desert residents' concerns and assured them that Hinkley wasn't 
being singled out. "We're not targeting anybody," Postmus said. "In this 
great country of ours, people get to buy property wherever they want and 
apply for a project."

Postmus, who has received $16,000 in campaign contributions from the 
composting company since 2003, said he had not decided how he will vote.

Nursery Products representatives say there is no evidence that sludge 
composting causes health problems.

"If there's any scientific evidence that shows there's a public health risk 
that would affect a community eight miles away, this project wouldn't 
happen," said Brian Lochrie, a spokesman for Nursery Products. "The fact of 
the matter is, there is no evidence."

In 2002, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences 
concluded that whether exposure to sludge caused adverse health effects was 
uncertain. As a result, half a dozen federally commissioned studies are now 
underway.

Ellen Harrison, director of Cornell University's Waste Management Institute 
in New York, said studies have shown that compost facility workers were at 
greater risk of developing respiratory and skin diseases. "The literature 
seems to indicate that there are certainly some things that can get 
airborne, and some of those things can represent a health hazard," Harrison 
said. "But how far they go is really not well known."

Still, Nursery Products has been run out of town before because of health 
concerns.

Adelanto sued the company in 2005 to close its facility there, claiming that 
the company lied about the noxious odors the facility would produce. Nursery 
Products settled the suit and agreed to close the facility.

The California Department of Health Services investigated the complaints in 
Adelanto. Although there wasn't enough data to determine if residents' 
health problems were caused by composting, the report concluded that some of 
the symptoms were "consistent with biosolid-related exposures documented in 
the scientific literature."

Schoolchildren at Bradach Elementary School, two miles from the Adelanto 
facility, suffered vomiting and increases in bloody noses and respiratory 
infections, school officials said.

A "black mass of thousands of flies" covered the school's outer doors and 
windows, according to then-principal Melva Davis. "On some days, the stench 
was so foul that students playing outside complained of stomachaches and 
headaches, and experienced vomiting," Davis said in a 2005 court 
declaration.

Employees at a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power switching station 
200 yards from the composting facility also complained of health problems, 
and Los Angeles eventually filed suit.

DWP workers' eyes itched and their noses ran on account of the dust and 
odors, and employees had to wear beekeeping headgear to keep flies away from 
their mouths, eyes and ears while they worked on high- voltage equipment, 
said DWP attorney S. David Hotchkiss.

After Adelanto, the company tried to relocate to nearby Newberry Springs, 
where residents made such a fuss that the company withdrew its proposal.

Hinkley's favored savior, Brockovich - made famous in the 2000 movie "Erin 
Brockovich," starring Julia Roberts - has not gotten involved in the town's 
new battle.

Brockovich's research helped cement two settlements from PG&E totaling $628 
million for residents of Hinkley, Kettleman Hills and other towns that 
blamed cancers and other diseases on contaminated water leaking from the gas 
pumping station.

"The whole community didn't do anything for months because they thought she 
was going to ride in on her white horse," said Hinkley resident Norman Diaz, 
who is leading the charge against Nursery Products. "But I talked to her 
office and got a response saying she wasn't interested. She's fighting other 
battles."

Brockovich said last week that she hadn't realized the project was so far 
along. "This is a community that is near and dear to my heart; I'm with them 
on their concerns," she said. "I don't know that I'd want it either."

Brockovich said she planned to look into the issue and encouraged residents 
to keep fighting.

The windblown town of 1,900 straddles a two-lane truck highway just west of 
Barstow. There are some alfalfa fields and a few small dairies, but no 
downtown - just a handful of mostly dirt roads lined with modest houses. On 
some days, the wind carries the scent of dairies.

Trying to gain momentum without the firepower of someone like Brockovich has 
been difficult.

In October, more than 300 people packed an elementary school cafeteria for 
an informational meeting about the project with county planning officials. 
But the real protest, Diaz said, has to happen at Board of Supervisors 
meetings in San Bernardino, a two-hour drive south.

Floyd Burns, 72, attended the October meeting to learn about Nursery 
Products' proposal, but he said he probably won't be able to get too 
involved in the fight. He's too busy driving his wife, Jean, to Victorville 
for chemotherapy five days a week. Jean, 67, survived breast cancer but now 
suffers from lymphoma that doctors told her was probably caused by chromium 
poisoning. She was part of a second lawsuit against PG&E.

"Right now, we're just trying to keep her alive," Burns said. "That's my 
main goal."

Residents say they wouldn't mind the composting facility so much if Nursery 
Products would build a dome around it to filter noxious fumes out of the 
air. Nursery Products officials said that is too expensive.

Nearby, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates 
portions of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties, 
requires composting plants to be enclosed. But Hinkley falls within the 
jurisdiction of the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District, which has 
less stringent regulations. A district spokeswoman said the district planned 
to study the issue in 2008.

In the meantime, people in Hinkley can't believe that Nursery Products 
picked their town, of all places, to set up business. The company says it 
selected the area because of its remote location.

"This isn't Beverly Hills," Burns said. "They probably took a look around 
and thought 'easy targets.' "

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sara.lin at latimes.com


http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-me-hinkley11dec11,0,67082,print.story?coll=la-health-medicine