Valley landfill violated disposal rules, EPA says
Barbara Anderson
Sacramento Bee
04/09/2010
A hazardous-waste landfill that Kettleman City residents blame for a rash of birth defects has improperly stored PCB – a cancer-causing chemical that can cause reproductive problems, federal inspectors said Thursday.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notified Waste Management that its landfill has violated disposal rules for polychlorinated biphenyl, a now-banned toxin found in electrical transformers and coolants.
Waste Management has 60 days to correct the problems or the EPA will stop sending PCB to the landfill from its cleanup sites, and the company could face fines, the EPA said.
The violations could damage the company's ability to fight allegations by residents that its landfill is to blame for birth defects.
They also could hamper Waste Management's efforts to expand the landfill about three miles from Kettleman City. Kings County supervisors on Dec. 22 approved a permit for the expansion. But the company also needs permits from federal and state agencies.
Jared Blumenfeld, EPA administrator for the Pacific Southwest region, said Waste Management first must correct the PCB disposal problem before he will consider a permit.
The EPA will not issue a permit "until we're confident the facility does not present a health risk to the community," Blumenfeld said Thursday.
Waste Management said it is correcting the problems. The health and safety of Kettleman City residents is the company's top priority, the firm said in a news release, adding that it has worked with the EPA for decades to run a safe operation.
Residents in the San Joaquin Valley community of 1,500 – where most people are poor and Latino – believe toxic substances at the landfill could be responsible for birth defects beginning in 2007. To date, 10 babies have been born with defects, including cleft lip and cleft palate facial deformities. Three of the infants died. An 11th baby was stillborn with birth defects.
The EPA announcement of violations Thursday was "bombshell news," said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Environmental Justice and Health. It should raise concern that the company is "not capable of safely handling hazardous materials that can be linked to cancer and reproductive health problems," Angel said.
PCBs were manufactured in the United States from 1929 until their manufacture was banned in 1979, according to the EPA. They vary in consistency from thin, light-colored liquids to yellow or black waxy solids, according to the agency's Web site, and were used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications.
Federal inspectors spent five days in mid-February at the landfill near Kettleman City and found several problems with disposal of PCBs.
