Proposal would prevent dumping

State bill seeks to bar storage or disposal of waste from other sites at Stringfellow Acid Pits

Jurupa Valley’s Stringfellow Acid Pits are an infamous toxic waste site, but a proposed bill would prevent off-site waste from being brought there in the future.

On Tuesday, Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes, D-riverside, introduced Assembly Bill 777, which would prohibit the “treatment, storage, transfer, or disposal” of any waste from another site at Stringfellow. State Sen. Richard Roth, D-riverside, will co-author the bill.

The bill comes in response to the relocation of containers of lead-laced soil from the Exide battery recycling plant in Los Angeles County to the Stringfellow site. There was debate over whether that particular waste could legally be stored at Stringfellow, but after receiving pushback from Jurupa Valley when the transfer was disclosed in June, the Department of Toxic Substances Control agreed in August to move the containers to another location.

Jurupa Valley’s city manager, Rod Butler, said the agency sent a letter around early December announcing the last container had been relocated.

However, there’s concern the same thing could happen again.

“It is outrageous that DTSC would use our Inland Empire communities as a dumping ground for toxic substances from other parts of the state,” Cervantes said in a statement on Tuesday. “The residents of Jurupa Valley are justifiably outraged at the Department’s continued violation of the public’s trust exhibited by the transfer of these soil samples to the Stringfellow site.”

Existing law only limits “hazardous” waste — which the California Health and Safety Code defines as a material that “because of its quantity, concentration, or physical or chemical characteristics, poses a significant present or potential hazard to human health and safety or to the environment if released into the workplace or the environment” — from being transferred to

Stringfellow.

The bill would amend that law to prevent the transportation of any kind of waste from another site to Stringfellow. The bill would also require the city be notified within three days if any materials that aren’t defined as waste are transported there.

Butler said city officials are excited about the bill.

“There’s already this burden in the city of dealing with the cleanup of all the toxic materials that were dumped here in the past,” he said, adding that it wasn’t fair to the city for the site to continue storing waste that originated elsewhere.

The site opened in 1956, an Environmental Protection Agency report states, and between then and the 1970s, “approximately 34 million gallons of liquid hazardous waste were deposited in unlined evaporation ponds.”

That waste contaminated the soil and groundwater, and the subsequent cleanup has continued for decades.

Stringfellow is a Superfund site, and California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control has been primarily responsible for its cleanup since 2002.

Cleanup has been expensive, and is expected to take as long as 400 years.

As cleanup efforts continue, the city is considering options for the land surrounding the site.

The contamination and cleanup will likely limit the land’s uses, but commercial developments are being discussed for the area between Stringfellow and Highway 60.

Butler said plans may move forward to the planning commission and city council this summer, though it could be several years before parcels start to be developed.

Cervantes