COUNTY BACKS WASTE PLANT; DISSENTING ANTONOVICH HAD SOUGHT ENCLOSURE FOR SITE.

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

Los Angeles County supervisors approved a conditional-use permit Tuesday for a proposed open-air sludge-composting plant, clearing a major hurdle for the controversial project.

The supervisors voted 3-1 to approve the permit for Maryland-based BioGro, with Michael D. Antonovich dissenting and Gloria Molina absent. Antonovich, whose district includes the plant site on the Antelope Valley's west side, fought unsuccessfully to have the facility enclosed.

BioGro plans to establish a composting operation on 67 acres on a farm south of Avenue A and west of 140th Street West, but the project still needs to be approved by the Antelope Valley Air Pollution Control District.

``Our hope is they (the air district) will require enclosure,'' said Antonovich's aide David Vannatta.

The board did, however, go along with an Antonovich motion to have the county Department of Health Services review information from a Texas A & M researcher showing that there is the ``potential of adversely impacting the public health of the residents in nearby communities.''

In a February 1997 report, county health officials said the BioGro sludge-composting plant will cause odors, but would not pose a risk to the region's groundwater and is unlikely to spread contaminants by wind.

``Operation of a composting facility in the proposed area of the Antelope Valley will not constitute a public health hazard to the community, immediate neighboring premises, or the workers employed at the proposed facility if the facility is operated in compliance with all applicable regulations,'' the report said.

In a letter to the supervisors dated Friday, Suresh Pillai, an environmental microbiologist at Texas A & M, said research he has conducted on a similar composting plant in west Texas shows the risk of microbial infection could be as great as 6.5 people in every 10,000.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency states the annual risk of microbial infection should not be greater than one in 10,000 people.

BioGro wants to pile sewage sludge, grass clippings and other types of plant waste in rows 7 feet tall, 18 feet wide and 850 feet long. The composted material would be sold as garden fertilizer.

Backers of the project say it will provide a low-cost way of recycling and would help Los Angeles County meet state-mandated goals of reducing the waste going into landfills.

Critics say the sludge contains industrial chemicals, including cancer-causing substances that can be carried great distances by the wind.

The county Regional Planning Commission had rejected BioGro's project, but BioGro appealed to the county supervisors, who gave it a tentative go-ahead in June 1997.

Planning commissioners wanted BioGro to enclose the compost piles, which is what the project's critics had sought out of concern that strong desert winds would blow sludge particles off the property.

Company officials said that enclosing the operation would be too expensive and instead proposed a compromise, including submitting to yearly reviews, putting tarps over material that could be blown away, and suspending loading and unloading when winds are above 25 mph.

The supervisors in April delayed voting on the project because of complaints that sludge used as farm fertilizer flowed off the property during an El Nino storm in February.

In response, the company has proposed protecting its farm with two-foot-high earthen berms and encircling the composting operation with an additional three-foot-high berm.

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MAP: Proposed composting site