KERN COUNTY OFFICIALS FACE LOS ANGELES MULCH MESS.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

As Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn seeks companies to haul residential trash to far-off landfills, Kern County is trying to clean up a waste deal gone awry that has left tons of yard trimmings and garbage from Los Angeles on farmland near Delano.

Officials of the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation and its green-waste recycler, Waste Management Inc. of Sun Valley, have distanced themselves from the dumping, blaming it on a subcontractor. They concede, however, that the Kern County site is a wake-up call about what can go wrong when a city's waste is shipped elsewhere.

``When you send things elsewhere, the best thing you can do is do your homework, as best you can, to make sure things don't happen,'' said Doug Corcoran, district manager of Waste Management.

The city contracts with Waste Management and several other trash companies to process the curbside recycling green bins. Contractors are supposed to remove trash and grind the leaves, tree trimmings and grass clippings into a mulch to be sent to farms in Kern and Ventura counties.

In this case, Waste Management contracted with Los Angeles Waste Industries to haul the ground-up green waste for use as fertilizer on farmland near the small town of Delano.

Last year, Kern County officials discovered 5-foot-deep piles of decomposing foliage laced with plastic, paper and glass. The county ordered the land cleared in December, but progress has been slow. Last week officials announced they would levy $10,000-a-day fines and pursue a lawsuit against Los Angeles Waste Industries if the site wasn't cleaned up in 30 days.

Los Angeles and Waste Management are not named in the complaint. However, Kern Environmental Health Services Director Steve McCalley said the issue is especially sensitive in his area because the waste is being hauled in from the other side of the county line.

``Our concern is public perception - and the real concerns about being a dumping ground for Los Angeles,'' he said. Kern County cities can't ``hire an intermediary and say we don't have any connection to that.''

Kern County Supervisor Ray Watson visited the property a few weeks ago and said the site looks like a 747 jetliner crashed there.

``There's just trash and junk all over the place,'' he said. ``It's really a terrible, terrible site. It just makes you feel bad for what's been done to that land.''

The general manager of Los Angeles Waste Industries, Laszlo Lensce, said the Kern project was his first attempt at farming, and he is trying to remove the trash from the yard trimmings so he can continue in his attempt to grow crops.

He said he has the full cooperation of the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation officials, who have asked him what more the city needs to do. He may seek taxpayer money for the clean-up.

``Our budget has already been spent - and maybe three times more,'' Lensce said.

The problem, he said, was there was too much plastic, paper and glass in the yard trimmings he received from Waste Management. His company's workers must remove enough of the litter to meet Kern standards or haul all of the green waste away.

Corcoran said the green waste leaving his facility had less than 1 percent trash, which is allowed by state law. Lensce was supposed to hire laborers to pick out residual bits after the mulch was spread and ship that trash back to Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley.

Corcoran said he did not know the material was being stockpiled on the Delano fields.

``As soon as we heard about it, we put the brakes on it and ended all business from them,'' Corcoran said. Waste Management has added new equipment and employees to further sort through green waste and cut the trash content in mulch down to 0.5 percent.

Bureau of Sanitation Assistant Director Enrique Zaldivar said city officials also severed ties with Los Angeles Waste Industries.

``We took immediate steps to stop the practice, at least from our perspective,'' Zaldivar said. ``I was not aware the area had not been cleaned up.''

Los Angeles already exports green waste to farms in Kern and Ventura counties. The city's sewage sludge is also shipped to Kern to fertilize soil to grow cattle feed. Officials in other counties, however, have cracked down on sludge-into-fertilizer projects because of environmental concerns and sensitivity over taking waste from Los Angeles.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com