Heat Rising Over California C&D Rules

A rare public confrontation between two members of the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) occurred at the agency’s January board meeting during the discussion of proposed tiered regulations for C&D recycling facilities. The dispute required immediate resolution and interpretation from legal counsel in the room, according to sources present at the meeting.

The dispute centered on the next step in the development of the tiered regulations, which would put permit requirements on the facilities on the basis of the number of tons they bring in per day, with higher volume facilities facing stricter regulations. But where to set the limits, including determining at what level a recycling facility will have to get a full solid waste permit (SWP), are the main issues the board and CIWMB staff are wrestling with.

Getting an SWP is an expensive and difficult proposition in activist California, according to William Turley, executive director of the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA), Lisle, Ill. The process requires public hearings that can be made uncomfortable and downright hostile by opponents, which can include property owners, environmentalists and business adversaries trying to make it difficult for a potential competitor.

Requiring smaller operations handling as few as 50 tons per day of material to get the SWP would almost certainly drive some companies out of the business and make many more hesitate before entering the recycling arena, says Turley. Some observers believe this is why established solid waste companies have been lobbying heavily to require SWPs on virtually every operation.

California has had a few high-profile cases in which operators have created large piles of debris and did not recycle them, eventually abandoning them. California state law (AB939) requires municipalities to divert 50 percent of their waste from landfills, with C&D materials increasingly looked at by governments as a part of that 50 percent. Thus the CIWMB is trying to draw up regulations that will encourage recycling without allowing inept or dishonest business owners to create unwanted stockpiles.

The issue came to a head at the January board meeting after more testimony was heard from stakeholders on the C&D recycling regulations. The six-member board is reportedly split how to configure the volume limits.

According to sources at the meeting, Board Chair Linda Moulton-Patterson, who largely sided with allowing smaller recyclers to operate without SWPs, then began to exercise her prerogative as chair to direct staff to set the final draft according to her guidelines. Tensions flared when board member Steve Jones challenged her authority to so direct the staff, prompting Moulton-Patterson to ask present legal counsel if she did in fact have such authority. The attorney said she did, quieting what had become a loud room.

Turley and other observers suggest that behind-the-scenes lobbying and pressuring will continue on the issue. “The big landfill companies want to see all the recyclers have to get SWPs, if only for the reasons that they had to get them and that this will slow down their independent competitors for years as they try for the permits,” says Turley.