State Grant Aids Trash Burners, Foes Argue

Opponents of waste-to-energy projects have accused a state agency of aiding the trash incineration industry by allocating $65,000 to an institute at the University of La Verne with ties to the industry.

Officials of both the state Waste Management Board and the National Energy Research and Information Institute denied that the money will be used for propaganda purposes, as critics have claimed.

The board last month allocated the funds to the institute for waste-to-energy programs. The grant includes $30,000 to start a resource library in cooperation with the California Waste-to-Energy Council, a nonprofit association that advocates construction of plants to burn trash to generate electricity.

The institute has invited the council and other energy-related associations to establish offices at the institute on the university campus.

Energy Conference

The grant also includes $15,000 for an international waste-to-energy conference and $20,000 to publish conference proceedings.

Terry Fitzgerald, a consultant employed by the City of Duarte to oppose trash incineration projects in the San Gabriel Valley, said she objects to the use of tax funds to benefit the Waste-to-Energy Council because it speaks for the trash incineration industry.

“They are trying to promote waste-to-energy with the public, and that is something a lot of people object to,” she said.

Four proposed waste-to-energy projects have been defeated in the San Gabriel Valley. Proponents of the plants contended that they would not endanger public health, but opponents charged that the plants would emit pollutants that would increase smog and present a cancer risk.

Mandate Asserted

Sherman Roodzant, chairman of the Waste Management Board, said that under state law his board has a mandate to encourage the development of waste-to-energy technololgy. Creating a resource library in a university setting ensures that the center will be run objectively and not disseminate propaganda, he said.

Institute Director Richard Green said: “I really object strongly to statements that we would produce materials that would not have both sides.”

In fact, he said, because of the Waste-to-Energy Council’s position in favor of waste-to-energy projects, the institute will take special pains to see that any materials bearing the institute’s name represent all points of view, not just the council’s.

The resource library will collect technical papers and develop a videotape library to provide factual information to the public on waste-to-energy conversion, he said.

Green said the library will be open to anyone who wishes to use it, and he assumes that opponents of waste-to-energy projects will be “one of the greatest users.”

“This will not be one-sided information,” he said. “The credibility of the university is at stake.”

Green said the energy institute, which was created in 1979, has invited several energy-related associations to establish offices on the University of La Verne campus so that they can pool resources, share information and exchange ideas. In addition to the Waste-to Energy Council, he said, the groups invited include the Global Energy Society, the western branch of the American Wind Energy Assn. and a section of the American Wood Energy Assn.

The Waste-to-Energy Council, which was organized in January, 1986, provides information about waste-to-energy processes and sponsors lectures and workshops.

Green said the Waste-to-Energy Council and other associations could save money by sharing services at the institute. He said diminishing public concern about energy resources has made it difficult for energy associations to support themselves, though much remains to be done in the energy field.

A summary of the institute’s proposal submitted to the Waste Management Board said pooling the resources of the affiliated associations will help them with newsletters, secretarial services and research. “These efforts can be accomplished in well-equipped offices that include a desktop publishing capability and access to the university print shop,” the proposal says.

Wil Baca, a leader in several organizations that have fought waste-to-energy proposals in the San Gabriel Valley, said he has little respect for the information that has come from the Waste-to-Energy Council in the past, and he objects to the institute’s offer to provide the group with a home.

“Providing them a home keeps them alive and it leverages what little money they are getting from the industry,” Baca said.

Green said the Waste-to-Energy Council has not yet committed itself to moving its office from Covina to the institute. The council is headed by Pete Watson, who is employed in the Covina office of a company that provides technical services for waste-to-energy projects. Watson could not be reached for comment.

The institute, whose board of directors is headed by W. H. Pickering of the Pickering Research Corp. of Pasadena, publishes a monthly energy newsletter and in June staged the combined Renewable Energy Technologies Symposium and International Exposition and International Power Exhibition and Energy Conference at the Anaheim Convention Center. The Waste-to-Energy Council cooperated with the institute in arranging the waste-to-energy portion of the conference. The grant from the state Waste Management Board will help pay for printing the proceedings of this year’s conference and staging next June’s conference at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

The funding of programs involving the Waste-to-Energy Council is the second action by the Waste Management Board to draw attacks from trash incineration opponents in recent months. Baca, West Covina City Councilman Forest Tennant and others sharply criticized the board for funding a $33,000 study analyzing how proponents of trash burners can pick site locations to minimize opposition. The study reported that burners would face the least opposition in areas populated by people who are old, poor and conservative.

The study was done three years ago and is no longer in use, but waste-to-energy opponents who just recently learned of its existence were furious anyway. Tennant complained that the state had “paid taxpayer dollars to find out how to stick garbage burners in our backyard.”

Baca said the new grant to the La Verne institute is another example of poor judgment by the Waste Management Board, which he said is pushing waste-to-energy when it should be giving more attention to other waste disposal options, such as composting and recycling.