City Environment Board Member Quits; Panel’s Chief Pushes for Wider Powers

One member of the Los Angeles Environmental Quality Board has resigned in a dispute with the mayor’s office over the board’s authority, and the board’s president said Wednesday that he will continue to push for expansion of the board’s powers to review environmental issues of citywide importance.

However, the dispute that caused board member Denise Fairchild to resign has been resolved, at least temporarily. As a result of the resignation, Deputy Mayor Tom Houston said, the mayor’s office has withdrawn its opposition to the board’s efforts to look into the controversial LANCER trash-to-energy project, which would build up to three huge incinerating plants around the city. LANCER stands for Los Angeles City Energy Recovery.

With other members of the board, Fairchild had called for a briefing on LANCER, in part because of reports from other cities that the incineration process releases cancer-causing substances into the air.

The mayor’s office last week told the board not to hold the hearing, prompting resignation threats from Fairchild and board President Robert L. Glushon. Houston said Wednesday that Mayor Tom Bradley, a LANCER supporter, was concerned that Fairchild, who in November filed a statement of intent to run for the City Council, intended to use the board as a forum for her own political agenda.

With Fairchild’s resignation, Houston said, the mayor no longer has any objection to the board’s looking into LANCER. In addition, the board received a vote of confidence from the City Council Finance Committee, which on Tuesday approved a motion by Councilman Robert Farrell to ask the board to hold a hearing on LANCER.

Glushon and Robert Hattoy, one of the four remaining board members and an official of the Sierra Club, said that while the LANCER disagreement has been resolved, the dispute is symptomatic of a bigger problem. Glushon and Hattoy say they are unhappy with the limited role the board has been given in reviewing environmental issues and will seek broader authority.

The two were appointed to the board by Bradley.

“A lot of environmental issues are falling through the cracks because there is no city agency acting as a clearing house on them,” Hattoy said. “As a result, people are asking us ‘What about LANCER? . . . What about ground water? What about the safety of underground pipelines?’ And we should be in a position to provide answers.”