Neighbors balk at renewed permit for hazardous waste facility

California regulators may soon grant a new permit for a hazardous waste treatment facility in Santa Fe Springs, even as they take on the same company in court over alleged violations.

The upcoming decision has alarmed environmental and community groups, who argue that the Department of Toxic Substances Control should deny Phibro-Tech a renewed permit after a history of violating state rules.

The Santa Fe Springs site is near the unincorporated area of ​​Los Nietos, a majority-Latino neighborhood in Los Angeles County that ranks among the most polluted communities in the state. The hazardous waste treatment facility is approximately 550 feet from the nearest homes, according to the state agency.

The Phibro-Tech facility had dozens of violations over the previous decade, according to a state analysis of its regulatory record. Last year, DTSC sued the company, alleging that state inspectors checking the site before the COVID-19 pandemic found leaking containers and other violations.

Yet months before suing the company, staff at the same agency told concerned neighbors that they had tentatively decided to renew the permit for the Santa Fe Springs facility. Serious violations have declined in recent years, Department of Toxic Substances Control officials said, and the facility does not pose a significant threat to the neighborhood.

State officials said they would make a final decision after weighing public comments.

But as it stands, “we have decided that, based on all available information – including their compliance history and recent progress in improving compliance – that it is appropriate to approve the permit,” Hazardous Substances Supervisory Engineer Phil Blum said at a July meeting. .

The Santa Fe Springs facility brings in hazardous waste and processes it to produce chemicals and metals like copper, which can then be used in electronics and other industries. Phibro-Tech said it “recycles waste that would otherwise have to be landfilled or injected into a deep well,” producing copper without the harms of mining.

It has been operating under an expired permit since 1996 – longer than any other hazardous waste facility in California, according to a recent company court filing. Under California rules, these facilities can continue to operate with an expired permit if they have filed a timely application for a new one.

The agency said one reason the permitting process for Phibro-Tech took so many years was “to allow time for environmental sampling and technical assessments” that would inform its decision. In the meantime, DTSC said it has “continued to exercise its enforcement authority,” including requiring cleanup of historic contamination.

A state review found that over a decade, the Santa Fe Springs facility had more than two dozen violations. Last year, the state ranked its compliance history eighth among the state’s 74 hazardous waste facilities, based on a rating system that tracks violations.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn has publicly called for the facility to be closed “until it complies with the law,” saying it poses too great a threat to the community.

DTSC “has a mandate to protect the public,” said Jaime Sanchez, a nearby resident and member of the local group Neighbors Against Phibro Tech. “But rather than protecting the public, they protected this industry…at the expense of the health, safety and well-being of affected communities.”

Phibro-Tech said the state rated its compliance as “conditionally acceptable,” with a score just above the “acceptable” threshold. She said its record had improved significantly in recent years and that the objections raised by Hahn were “based on a misunderstanding of the plant and its current operations.”

DTSC officials told residents the new permit would come with conditions aimed at protecting neighboring communities, including maintaining gas detection sensors in critical areas.

“The overall story here is that DTSC examined the operations of the facility in great detail. We have demanded significant changes to the way operations will be conducted under a new permit. And we think that demonstrates that the facility can be operated safely,” Blum said at a 2022 meeting.

Part of the residential neighborhood of Los Nietos, visible at the bottom of this image, is across a street and an empty lot from Phibro-Tech, which processes hazardous waste.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Byron Chan, senior attorney at the nonprofit Earthjustice, which specializes in environmental law, argued that the agency should not grant a new permit to “a facility that has shown that it does not was not interested in complying. He said it appeared the fines had become the “cost of doing business” for Phibro-Tech, calling it a “continuing pattern of irresponsibility”.

“You will see a pattern of violating the law, paying a fine, and then violating the law again,” he said.

Five years ago, the agency announced the company had to pay $495,000 in penalties for violations, including storing hazardous waste outside permitted areas. Earthjustice also cited past incidents at the Santa Fe Springs facility in which ammonia and hydrochloric acid were released at the site and workers were burned by the acid.

Phibro-Tech said in a statement that the chemical releases cited by the environmental group had not threatened the community and that it had adjusted its operations to prevent a recurrence. “If a violation is found,” the company said, “we take immediate action to remedy it as quickly as possible.”

In its September lawsuit, DTSC alleged the company broke the law by keeping hazardous waste in leaking containers, one of several violations found by inspectors visiting the facility in 2019.

He also criticized Phibro-Tech for failing to quickly dismantle a pond where hazardous waste had been processed in decades past. (The Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, another group opposed to a new permit for the facility, argued that not doing so increases the risk of spreading contaminants.)

Phibro-Tech said many of the alleged violations resulted from a change in the agency’s position. The company said the decades-old permit no longer reflects how the DTSC interprets that the equipment processes waste rather than “product,” and that the ambiguity has led to citations for “the operation of long-standing equipment.

He also disputed the state’s claims about container leaks and the required timeline for closing the basin, which he said was now complete.

Overall, he said, the allegations “are not relevant today.” The DTSC, in turn, said Phibro-Tech had “returned to compliance” for the violations alleged in the suit.

Chan said the State Department appears to be relying on “a false standard … that if they weren’t following the law yesterday, but they are today, then it’s not severe”.

It’s “ignoring everything that happened in the past,” he said.

In a letter opposing the permit renewal, Earthjustice said the state agency failed to conduct an adequate environmental review for the decision. She also complained that the agency had not collected any information on pollution levels beyond the boundaries of the Phibro-Tech facility.

Neighbors have raised concerns about industrial contamination of the site, including hexavalent chromium, the carcinogen perhaps best known for being the target of famed activist Erin Brockovich.

“We want to live in a safe environment. … We don’t want to worry about our health, safety and well-being at the expense of a company’s profits,” resident Sanchez said.

Phibro-Tech indicated that it had taken responsibility for the contamination caused by a previous operator. DTSC officials said the company’s cleanup efforts have brought hexavalent chromium in the site’s soil to safe levels.

DTSC has not identified “significant health risks related to the operation of the facility,” Blum said last year.