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Coalition Claims CleanTech’s New Facility Violates Zoning Code
Arcadia Weekly Apr 15, 2015
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Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area – Photos by Terry Miller
By Mariela Patron
A coalition made up of environmentalists, community volunteers, and religious leaders in defense of the Santa Fe Dam Recreational Area continued their fight against CleanTech Environmental Inc.’s new used-oil treatment and hazardous waste storage facility last week.
The coalition signed a letter asking the Irwindale City Council to rectify alleged incorrect zoning code information the Department of Toxic Substances Control obtained while assessing the Environmental Impact Report for CleanTech’s new facility.
“The DTSC has abandoned the people that it is supposed to protect from toxic harm,” Liza Tucker, consumer advocate for Consumer Watchdog, said. “It is a matter of being ignored.”
The letter claims CleanTech’s facility goes against the permitted use of the area and does not have a needed conditional use permit. It also classifies the new facility as large processing, which, according to the zoning code, is not allowed to process hazardous materials or expand without modifying the required permit.
Irwindale Community Development Director Gus Romo said CleanTech does not qualify as a large processing facility because by definition a facility of the sort collects and processes recyclable materials and occupies at least 25,000 square feet of gross collection, processing and storage area.
CleanTech installed two tanks in February—one for treating used oil and the other for storing non-RCRA wastewater. DTSC Media Information Officer Russ Edmondson said tanks are only allowed to be installed in CleanTech’s existing 18,240 square foot warehouse.
The coalition says it is concerned with the facility’s quarter mile proximity to the Santa Fe Dam Recreational Area because it will increase the risk of oil spills and pollution.
“I wish we could more seriously consider the well-being of all people and of the Earth itself and not let corporations guide the health of the planet,” said Rabbi Jonathan Klein, executive director of CLUE Los Angeles. “It’s painful to see it’s an undeserved Latino community that faces the wrath of toxic polluter.”
CleanTech President Bob Brown said oil cannot reach the recreational area.
“We’ve got many layers of new concrete, multiple protection barriers around all the tanks included,” Brown said. “There’s no way that anything can impede or harm the Santa Fe Dam.”
However, Tucker said the community is being taken advantage of.
“I think the DTSC minimized the potential effect of spills and trucks coming in and out of deliveries,” Tucker said. “I think they wanted to come out with this result to ram it down the throats of that community.”
Advocates are reaching out to neighboring cities for support against CleanTech’s facility. Beatriz Sandoval, volunteer coordinator for L.A. Voice PICO, said she is scared the same oversight that occurred in Vernon, California will happen in Irwindale.
In March, an Exide Technologies battery recycling plant officially shut down in Vernon as a result of lead emissions. According to status updates from advocates on the Save the Santa Fe Dam Rec Area Facebook page, the DTSC ignored Exide Technologies’ operations for years.
Tucker said the DTSC knows how to use loopholes to the advantage of companies. “There is a revolving door of people that leave the DTSC and then go represent industry,” she said.
Brown said the new facility benefits the community.
“It’s creating green jobs and improving the environment by lowering our carbon footprint for the state,” Brown said. “It is the cleanest facility for recycling used oil in the state of California because it is done indoors.”
Before installing the facility, CleanTech transported used-oil to Veolia Environmental Services in Azusa.
CleanTech submitted an application for its waste storage and treatment facility to the DTSC in 2010. The permit issued December 2012 was appealed, and it prompted the DTSC to do an Environmental Impact Report instead of the initial Negative Declaration, Edmondson said.
Deputy Director of the Planning and Development Agency of Los Angeles Norma Garcia said the department reviewed the Environmental Impact Report draft and found the facility would not cause a significant environmental impact on the recreational area.
In addition, Romo said the city determined in 2012 that a conditional use permit was not needed because the new facility is considered a supplementary part of CleanTech’s business as a registered manufacturer and of its hazardous waste management programs.
Upon completing the Environmental Impact Report, the DTSC granted CleanTech the necessary permit in February. The DTSC denied all appeals to the final decision.
