Waste Board Approves Used Tire Grants

VISALIA—City and county agencies working to cut down the risks of dangerous, illegal tire stockpiles will receive grant allocations in excess of a half-million dollars approved by the California Integrated Waste Management Board late yesterday.

"Sadly, California's love affair with the automobile has resulted in legacy tire piles that put the public and environment at great risk," said Waste Board Chairman Dan Eaton. "If we work together, State and local government, we can reduce the dangers of unsafe waste tire piles without compromising the legitimate uses—and reuses—of this valuable product."

Meeting here today and yesterday, the Board—California's primary recycling agency—approved $612,459 in cleanup and enforcement grants to help local agencies deal with waste tires in their jurisdictions. Part of the allocations approved by the Board will be used by city and county enforcement agencies to ensure that facilities storing more than 500 waste tires comply with laws protecting the public and the environment. The rest of the money will be used to boost local efforts to eliminate illegal or abandoned tire stockpiles.

The Board directed tire funds to the following communities:

Local Government Waste Tire Cleanup Grants:  $112,814 Total

Riverside County:  The Board will fund 90 percent of a $83,000 cleanup operation with a $75,000 allocation to the Soboba Band of Mission Indians. Three tire piles holding an estimated 145,150 tires on the Soboba Indian Reservation, near San Jacinto, will be removed by American Tire Disposal to a local landfill. The tires were illegally put on the reservation, but no new ones have been added to the pile for at least the past five years.

Monterey County:  A $22,450 grant from the Board to the Monterey County Health Department will help pay for a $30,000 cleanup of an estimated 3,000 tires unlawfully left on an abandoned mushroom farm in Royal Oaks. The money will pay for the removal of the tires, while the county considers how to pay for other trash and abandoned buildings remaining on the site. The tires will be shredded and taken to the Monterey Regional Waste Management Facility where they will be used in the liner of a future landfill cell.

Sierra County:  A $15,364 grant to the County Department of Public Works towards an $18,4000 project to remove and recycle 2,400 large tires from the Loyalton Landfill. In 1998, Sierra County used a $38,952 grant from the Board to remove more than 20,000 tires from this legacy pile, situated in the City of Loyalton.

Waste Tire Enforcement Grants: $499,645 Total

These Board-approved grants will be used to help local agencies inspect and survey waste tire facilities storing more than 500 tires. The money will also be used to provide such operations with guidance on tire storage regulations and could fund initial enforcement actions to protect the public and environment. The Board made the allocations to the following entities:

Butte County Local Enforcement Agency (LEA)—$79,247
Imperial County LEA—$15,991
Los Angeles County LEA—$100,000
City of Pittsburg—$54,061
City of San Bernardino—$21,990
City of San Diego LEA—$97,416
Tulare County LEA—$100,000
Yuba/Sutter Counties LEA—$30,940

The Waste Board has inspected more than 500 illegal waste tire sites since the start of the State waste tire enforcement program in 1994. Four-fifths of those sites are now in compliance with laws regulating waste tires or have been cleaned up. Investigations are pending on more than 100 other sites. Meanwhile, the Board has issued more than 400 cleanup orders and administrative and criminal complaints on behalf of the public.

"We have all seen the environmental dangers of unpermitted waste tire piles demonstrated in two major fires in the Central Valley over the past two years," said Eaton. "It's a situation that can't be allowed to continue unchecked in California."

The six-member Integrated Waste Management Board is responsible for protecting the public's health and safety and the environment through management of the estimated 60 million tons of solid waste generated in California each year. The Board's mandate is to work in partnership with local government, industry, and the public to achieve a 50 percent reduction in waste disposed by this year, while ensuring environmentally safe landfill disposal capacity. In 1999, California diverted 37 percent of its wastes from landfills.

The Waste Board is one of six boards and departments within the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA).

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