L.A. SLUDGE CAN STILL GO TO KERN COUNTY JUDGE SAYS BAN CAN'T BE ENFORCED UNTIL HIGHER COURT RULES ON NEW LAW.Byline: BRAD A. GREENBERG Staff Writer A preliminary ruling Monday will temporarily allow Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. to continue shipping biosolids biosolids Sewage sludge, the residues remaining from the treatment of sewage. For use as a fertilizer in agricultural applications, biosolids must first be stabilized through processing, such as digestion or the addition of lime, to reduce concentrations of heavy metals and to a city-owned farm in Kern Kern, river, 155 mi (249 km) long, rising in the S Sierra Nevada Mts., E Calif., and flowing south, then southwest to a reservoir in the extreme southern part of the San Joaquin valley. The river has Isabella Dam as its chief facility. County, although voters there have banned the use of treated sewage as fertilizer. Los Angeles filed suit last summer after Kern County voters approved a measure to prevent the city from trucking processed human waste to Green Acres Green Acre is a conference facility in Eliot, Maine, in the United States. It was founded by Sarah Farmer in 1894. After Sarah Farmer became a Bahá'í in 1900, many Bahá'í speakers were invited, including Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl in 1903, `Abdu'l-Bahá in 1912 and Mírzá Farm. The law was set to take effect Jan. 1. U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess plans to prohibit enforcement until a higher court has ruled on the legality of the law. ``It keeps the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. and that is what we were seeking from the court,'' said Chris Westhoff, general counsel for the Los Angeles Department of Public Works public works pl.n. Construction projects, such as highways or dams, financed by public funds and constructed by a government for the benefit or use of the general public. Noun 1. . ``That was the right thing to do. Quite honestly, if you were to weigh it on a scale, the harms to the city of Los Angeles
The city, which was joined in the lawsuit by the sanitation bureaus of Los Angeles and Orange counties, claims the law violates the state Integrated Waste Management Act. Los Angeles had previously spent $45 million upgrading its sewage-treatment system to comply with an existing Kern County ordinance that allows for the usage of Class-A fertilizer only. Los Angeles spends about $7 million annually to truck 750 tons of sludge daily to its 4,688-acre farm south of Bakersfield. It could cost taxpayers $21 million a year if the ban took effect and the city had to transport the biosolids to Arizona. Feess' final ruling is expected within a few days. He plans to certify the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which likely would send it to the state Supreme Court. Last month, Feess rejected Kern County's request to dismiss the case. ``The county is disappointed that we are not going to be able to enforce the ban on the date we intended it to go into effect,'' Kern County spokesman Allan Krauter said. ``Our lawyers are confident the Supreme Court will decide in our favor.'' brad.greenberg(at)dailynews.com (818) 713-3634 |
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