Sludge Watch ==> Oxnard California hauling toxic ash out of Wasco, Kern Co. California - finally

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

News At This Hour
BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIAN



Time running out for ash removal in Oxnard


BY JAMES BURGER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: jburger at bakersfield.com |
Friday, Jun 23 2006 10:40 PM

To see the area map, go to the webpage:
http://www.bakersfield.com/619/story/58684.html

Toxic ash piles near Wasco are nearly gone.

Graphics:
City of Oxnard officials have 252,000 reasons to make sure every grain of 
the hazardous material is trucked off their land by Tuesday.

Charles Lackey, director of engineering and survey services for the County 
of Kern, thinks Oxnard will make the deadline.

"They have almost all the material removed," Lackey said. "There is just a 
thin layer left on the site."

June 27 is the deadline Kern County supervisors set on April 4 for final 
removal of more than 100,000 tons of alkaline compounds from Oxnard's 
biosolid disposal farm near Wasco.

If Oxnard doesn't clean up the mess by Tuesday, the city will have to pay a 
$3,000-a-day penalty that has been building since April 4.

The balance on June 27 will be $252,000, county reports state.

Oxnard can dodge the penalty if it can move all its ash to the Clean Harbors 
hazardous waste facility in Buttonwillow before the Board of Supervisors 
meets Tuesday afternoon.

The ash, ruled hazardous waste by the Department of Toxic Substances Control 
in January, was stockpiled by USA Transport trucking company and mixed with 
treated human waste imported to Kern County fields from Oxnard.

It is the caustic byproduct of the oil-refining process and can burn the 
eyes, nose and throat. But it also kills pathogens in sludge -- increasing 
the "quality" of the waste as a fertilizer.

Both Oxnard and USA Transport dispute that the ash is hazardous. Officials 
with the DTSC are retesting it to verify the claim. But no results of that 
retesting were available Friday.

Supervisors ordered the material removed in April based on the first 
Department of Toxic Substances Control report.

Lackey said Oxnard took the penalty and the cleanup demand seriously.

"I think the board got their attention," he said.

A report to supervisors indicates Oxnard hired three trucking firms to 
transport the waste and moved so fast they had to be ordered, by air 
pollution watchdogs, to be careful about tossing too much of the ash into 
the air as dust.

Oxnard has already paid a $25,000 penalty for accumulating at least four 
times the amount of the caustic ash as Kern County ordinances permitted.

And the city's letters to Kern County indicate they have removed between 
100,000 and 110,000 tons of ash -- far more than was estimated to be there 
in April.

Supervisors also levied a matching $25,000 penalty on USA Transport. The 
trucking company has not paid, Lackey said.

Kern County supervisors will meet Tuesday afternoon to decide if Oxnard has 
completed the cleanup and if there are any new penalties that need to be 
assessed.

They will also hear an appeal by USA Transport, which is asking the county 
to reinstate a permit allowing the company to spread biosolids on the Oxnard 
sludge farm. That permit was canceled by county Environmental Health 
Department officials in February after the ash was classified as hazardous 
waste.

On June 6 county voters passed Measure E, which will outlaw local spreading 
of biosolids generated outside Kern County.