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Cleaning up the garbage of LA's dirty waste hauling practices

2012-02-14T21:22:58Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

Yesterday, during a marathon hearing that went past 5:30pm, the Los Angeles Board of Public Works took a huge step to a more sustainable future. You can read about the hearing here and here. It passed recommendations on how to improve LA’s waste system, while simultaneously reducing unnecessary truck pollution, reducing our dependence on space-hogging landfills, and helping resolve emerging environmental challenges like climate change. A broad array of environmental, environmental justice, community, faith-based, labor, and small business groups from the Don’t Waste LA Coalition participated to support the proposal.

Overall, the Board was swayed by the thorough job completed by the Bureau of Sanitation, which hired a consulting firm to analyze the benefits of various models of waste service and determine which system would have the smallest environmental footprint while still being financially feasible. The Bureau staff determined that an exclusive franchise would have the smallest environmental footprint of any option for reforming the commercial and multi-family sectors of LA’s waste industry. The exclusive franchise system being proposed would create 11 service areas in LA and have one hauler per service area. The proposal even said there would be ways to carve out areas for smaller enterprises, as opposed to solely going to the big four haulers which handle more than 85% of the waste contracts in the City’s commercial and multi-family sectors. An appropriately designed exclusive franchise system can have benefits ranging from a fairer rate structure, fewer dirty vehicle emissions and overlapping truck routes, the most aggressive diversion rate, and the highest reduction of impact from this industry in general.

I was struck during the hearing when one commenter claimed we do not need an exclusive system and that the above benefits could be achieved tomorrow without fundamental changes in the current system. If this is the case, then I challenge the industry to prove it. However, I am not going to hold my breath. I’m not confident that they will change their practices since they could have done so for decades. Now, I want to reiterate that there are many good actors in this sector. And, I am confident those folks will do well under a new system with standards. However, the lack of accountability and visibility in the system and the bad actors in the industry are bringing the whole system down. Because of this, I will continue to advocate for the exclusive franchise system because it provides the best environmental benefits and is the best solution for the City.

Hyperbole ran deep from the opponents of the Bureau of Sanitation’s plan. The main group organized to oppose rational reform of LA’s waste system was a new organization formed in October called Angelenos for a Clean Environment (ACE). Its members include the LA Chamber of Commerce, the Valley Industry Commerce Association, Central City Association and the Los Angeles County Disposal Association, amongst others. You can read more about them here. Essentially, ACE is a conglomeration of industry trade groups with a misleading name.

We should not be fooled by the rhetoric being promoted by ACE. The speakers they organized yesterday ranged in fanatical claims from concerns over small haulers to spread of fascism to the destruction of the American family. In focusing on the first argument, which may have a small nugget of legitimacy, it is important to understand that despite claiming 140 companies will be put out of business, only seven companies actually voiced concerns yesterday. And, many of the companies that the opponents claim will be impacted actually won’t be because they are exempted from the proposal. Asking them to testify is merely to maintain the status quo of a dirty and polluting system that benefits few on the backs of many.

Moreover the opposition expressed concern over the “thousands of jobs that would be lost” due to the new system; however, these claims appear to lack evidence. A recent report from the Blue Green Alliance found that you tap greater job creation when you increase recycling activities. I blogged about this report back in November.

NRDC will continue to advocate for the Bureau’s proposal to be implemented by the City Council. According to the Bureau’s consultant report submitted in January, only 19% of the waste in the commercial sector gets diverted from landfills. That is not a good record, and we need to improve this number to realize our zero waste goals. An exclusive franchise system is the best way to get there. Besides, there is too much at stake to allow City Councilmembers to be spooked by rhetoric and doomsday scenarios.

LA's Trash Bureau Recommends Important Step for City's Waste

2012-02-08T21:09:10Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

Yesterday, the Bureau of Sanitation for the City of LA released its recommendations for fixing the inefficiencies in LA’s waste system. After more than a year of careful consideration, the Bureau determined that an exclusive franchise system with 11 franchise zones for the commercial and multi-family sectors would provide the best solution to increasing recycling and minimizing the burden that waste collection imposes on LA residents. As I have written before, the commercial and multi-family sectors are responsible for approximately 70% of the waste LA sends to landfills, so it is an important nut to crack to meet the City’s zero waste goals. I have written several blogs on this issue and on the benefits of going to zero waste ranging from reducing our dependence on polluting and space hogging landfills to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to creating more jobs. You can read these blogs, here, here, and here.

In discussing the Bureau’s recommendations with my colleagues from Sierra Club’s Zero Waste Committee in Los Angeles, we are immensely excited. If this passes through the Board of Public Works, this marks a bold statement from the City that it is serious about sustainability. It will serve as a key victory for environmentalists concerned about the impacts of waste on our land, water, air, and future generations. The proposed changes to the current inefficient system unlocks the potential to take LA to the next level of recycling and set us as a national leader.

The work doesn’t end if the Board of Public Works votes to approve the Bureau of Sanitation’s recommendations. Beyond the need for the decision to be approved by the LA City Council, there will be a lot more work to make sure the ultimate franchise system includes strong requirements. We need to continue to be vigilant to make sure LA’s waste industries are operating in a sustainable way. But, the ultimate conclusion from the Bureau’s recommendations is that the new program will shine a light onto an industry that has been shielded for a long time in LA. The proposed exclusive franchise system will make achieving LA’s waste reduction goals much easier because there will be greater transparency and accountability.

I cannot gloss over the fact that there will be those who do not want greater transparency and accountability. Mainly, these interests represent big business groups who will not stop in their efforts to maintain the status quo. These groups will even go so far as to create faux environmental organizations to make it seem like environmentalists support their band aid solution to a big problem. But in the end, we cannot let these parochial interests block progress. The Board of Public Works needs to implement a system that is fair and works for all LA residents and businesses, not just those in the private sector who have the resources to bark loudly and complain.

So, what are the next steps? On Monday morning, February 13, 2012, LA’s Board of Public Works will hear the recommendations from the Bureau of Sanitation and vote on whether to approve them. If approved, it will head to City Council. Strap in folks, the opponents will likely throw out all the stops, but some policies are worth running through the gauntlet. This is certainly one of them.

Ninth Circuit Remains Resolute In Its Support of Cleaner Air In Los Angeles

2012-01-27T19:15:01Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

About a year ago, I blogged about a significant legal victory for clean air and clean transportation in the Los Angeles region. You can read that blog here. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed its earlier decision today, which is happy news for those of us in the Los Angeles region who want cleaner air. A year ago, the Court ruled that the Los Angeles region needs a real plan to clean up its harmful air pollution. After the decision was released, instead of rolling up their sleeves and fixing the deficiencies in our clean air plan, EPA and other government agencies sought to have the Court change its opinion. They filed what is called a petition for panel rehearing. It essentially asked the three judges on the panel to change their minds.

After careful consideration and a lot of briefing, the Ninth Circuit once again vindicated the rights of residents in the region who want clean air. Notably, the decision accomplishes three important objectives.

First, it requires the Los Angeles region to revise its clearly inadequate roadmap for cleaning up harmful ozone pollution.
Second, it requires EPA to make sure measures to clean up harmful pesticide pollution are enforceable.
Third, it requires the region to get more serious about addressing emissions from transportation (e.g. cars and trucks).

In looking back at my prior blog post, I made the following statement:

Overall, the Court has revived a sense of accountability in clean air planning in the nation’s smog capitol. The decision today seeks to translate a clean air plan from just a stack of papers on the shelf to a requirement to actually meet clean air standards to protect the health.

With the revised opinion today, this statement remains as true as ever. My hope is that instead of continued fighting and dragging of their feet, our agencies finally roll up their sleeves and fix the problematic plan that is supposed to clean the air but simply falls flat.

Residents Near Highways in LA Deserve Clean Air Too

2012-01-04T18:27:21Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

Yesterday, NRDC along with Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles and Communities for a Better Environment filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) challenging the failure to provide air monitoring for harmful particulate pollution near highways in the Los Angeles region. You can read about the lawsuit here.

This case is important for making sure our agencies protect the approximate 1.2 million people living near major roadways in the LA region. The Clean Air Act promises clean air for all, and it does not say we are allowed to ignore the health and well-being of residents near highways.

Unanimous Vote Sends Los Angeles on a Path to More Recycling

2011-12-07T02:46:56Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

The City Council of Los Angeles voted today to give private waste haulers servicing businesses notice that the City wants to get serious about improving its recycling rates. This notice is required by law before a City may change the system for private waste hauling.

The Don’t Waste LA Coalition was very happy with the outcome today. This broad coalition includes environmental, environmental justice, economic justice and labor groups, including Sierra Club, NRDC, Coalition for Clean Air, Communities for a Better Environment, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, Pacoima Beautiful, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Teamsters Local 396 and Clergy Laity United for Economic Justice. The coalition has supported moving forward with the five year notice for about a year now. Importantly, after today’s vote, the City has indicated it wants to seek reform to the waste system servicing large apartment buildings and businesses, which is about 70% of the waste the City send to landfills.

The unanimous vote today now sparks a city-wide debate about how best to structure a system to achieve the best results of recycling, environmental protection and working conditions. The City Council members who spoke sent a message loud and clear that they want an informed debate that is not just rhetoric and doomsday scenarios.

The Don’t Waste LA coalition has supported an exclusive franchise system as the best way to maximize recycling rates, implement cleaner truck standards, minimize inefficient overlapping trash truck routes and ensure proper conditions for workers. We will be very active in the city-wide, democratic debate on this issue as the process moves forward.

Overall, the City needs to develop a system that works well for all residents of Los Angeles, including tenants, small businesses, and the thousands of people who could have jobs in this industry, but don’t because we currently send so much waste to landfills.

We need a system that achieves the best recycling rates now, ensures we keep costs appropriate for the services provided, and eliminates the constellation of overlapping truck routes we now experience. Right now, we waste too many jobs by sending millions of tons of trash to landfills and we tolerate an absurd glut of trucks and their requisite impacts. Hopefully, by this time next year, we’ll be well on a path that leads us to our zero waste goals, helps mitigate unnecessary pollution and creates green jobs – a victory that will go a long way to making Los Angeles a more sustainable community.

LA Is Getting Serious About Its Garbage

2011-11-23T19:39:32Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

Yesterday, as reported in the LA Daily News, the Energy and Environment committee of the Los Angeles City Council approved an important decision to give waste haulers servicing LA’s businesses notice that it will be exploring options to make its waste collection system better and more efficient. This is an important step for Los Angeles to realize its desires to meet zero waste goals. I have written several blogs on the benefits of going to zero waste ranging from reducing our dependence on polluting and space hogging landfills to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to creating more jobs. You can read these blogs, here, here, and here.

Now that this issue has been approved by the Ad Hoc Committee on Waste and Recycling and the Energy and Environment Committee, it goes to the full City Council next week. As the LA Daily News article mentions, the decision is essential because it allows us to start a debate about the best way to structure our waste collection system so that it works better for the people of this City. The decision does not lock the City into any particular decision, and the City could decide that the inefficient system we have today should remain in place. Our City Leaders need to approve this item because only then can we start the discussion about the real change necessary to take a large dent out of the 3 to 4 million tons of trash we send to landfills each year. At the end of the day, I am confident that the City can devise an exclusive franchise system that helps us place cleaner trash trucks on the road, increase the amount we recycle, and improve conditions for workers in the waste industry who are on the front lines of managing the significant amount of waste Los Angeles residents create each day.

Recycling Equals Jobs

2011-11-15T20:17:31Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

Today is America Recycles Day, and I had the good fortune to share some excellent news about an important report that will hopefully spur a bold vision from our national and local leaders on recycling.

The report titled More Jobs, Less Pollution was prepared by the BlueGreen Alliance, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, NRDC, Service Employees International Union, Recycling Works! and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) by the Tellus Institute.

The release of this report was a good reason to have a press conference because as we try to tackle climate change--one of our most serious environmental threats--and pick up the economy, it is nice to hear that through recycling and reuse, we can do both at the same time.

More Jobs, Less Pollution shows that while the vast majority of municipal solid waste nationwide can be readily recycled, re-used, or composted, only 33% is currently diverted from disposal, and only 30 percent of the 178 million tons of construction and demolition debris is recycled.

Most of our waste is still sent to landfills and incinerators. By implementing a bold national recycling and composting strategy of 75% waste diversion rate by 2030, the report shows that we can create much needed local jobs, save water and energy resources, and reduce pollution and other environmental contaminants that harm human health.

Two of the findings I found particularly impactful were the following—

By implementing this bold national vision, 2.3 million jobs in waste industries will be created by 2030--almost twice as many jobs as projected if we do nothing.
We can also significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions--recycling 75 percent of our waste is equivalent to shutting down 72 coal fired power plants or taking 50 million cars off the road.

The findings of the report also show that the vast majority of job creation in waste industries happens through recycling and reuse, not disposal. For context, in 2008, 15% of jobs were from disposal-related activities (collection, landfilling, incineration) while 85% of jobs were associated with diversion activities (collection, processing, manufacturing with recycled materials, composting).

The critical findings of this report compelled several of Los Angeles’ elected leaders to participate in the press conference with me, including City Councilmembers Richard Alarcon, Jose Huizar, Paul Koretz, Maria Elena Durazo with LA County Federation of Labor, Ananda Lee Tan with GAIA and Greg Good, director of Don’t Waste LA. They were joined by workers, environmental advocates, and community members.

The take away is that this report provides compelling evidence for both jobs and the environment if we act quickly to enhance recycling and reuse. Although the reported recycling rates in the City of Los Angeles are higher than the national average, we still need to meet the City’s goal of having zero waste. This report confirms that if we can achieve that, we will go a long way to reducing our impacts on the environment and creating jobs. By implementing an exclusive franchise system, we can achieve a vision that produces good paying, local jobs that also benefits the environment.

Mayor's Road Rehabilitation Plan Appears to Be A Good Idea

2011-11-11T20:05:04Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

I was very pleased to read the David Zahniser and Ari Bloomekatz piece in the LA Times yesterday about the Mayor’s plan to fast track street improvements in Los Angeles. You can read the article here. The LA Times published a pretty critical editorial on the plan. Overall, the details of the plan have not been released yet, but the basic structure actually sounds like a good idea for Los Angeles.

I have this opinion for many reasons. First, people are always clamoring about job creation right now. Listening to the news, this is the time to create jobs. Second, the state of many streets in Los Angeles is shameful. On a recent bike ride in Silverlake, I almost destroyed my bike and my body riding through a “pothole.” I call them “potholes,” but many street holes in the city should probably be called street canyons. Third, the Mayor probably can make a case that the neglect of many of these roads over the years necessitates action now. I am not convinced we should wait decades for many of these repairs.

One way to allay the concerns about spending future dollars is to double dip and implement concurrently the bike infrastructure projects promised under Measure R at the same time. As the streets are being repaired, this provides a great time to make Los Angeles more bikeable. This helps promote a more sustainable city with better transportation choices.

At the end of the day, the decision on this will be done democratically. The plan has not even been released yet. The Mayor and the Board of Public Works will likely lay out the plan, and people will be able to argue for or against it. However, I must admit that I am excited about the prospect of biking from downtown to my home on smooth streets, instead of dodging cars and canyons.

Los Angeles' Disadvantaged Population Run Over by Lack of Transit Options, Again

2011-11-08T01:30:50Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

The LA Times has run a series of provocative articles on “Buy Here, Pay Here” dealerships, which according to the articles can have vicious impacts on consumers, particularly the low-income consumers that tend to use these services. The articles can be found here, here, and here. Overall, the stories highlight yet another predatory practice that is targeted towards low-income residents desperate for transportation to get to work or attend school to provide shelter, food, and clothing for their families. The second story in the series highlights how some on Wall Street have invested into another market betting on people failing to make their payments—this appears eerily reminiscent of housing bets made by our banks.

Low-income residents in places like Los Angeles are already facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles: high housing costs, bus service cuts, and a lack of jobs. After reading the articles, I am left with four main points that stick out as we debate this issue.

First, this practice is unacceptable. At a minimum, there needs to be regulation to make sure the abuses outlined in the articles do not continue. Not only are these dealerships demanding premium prices on worn out cars and earning a profit of about 40 percent for each sale, they are ensuring customers default on their payments by slapping on interest rates that exceed triple the national average for a used-car loan.

Second, cities like Los Angeles need to do more to make public transportation work for low-income residents. Even though the Mayor’s efforts to implement 30/10 are laudable and should be praised, we are concurrently cutting vital lifelines for low income residents like our bus system. Like the 30/10 plan, we need a major effort to reinvigorate our bus system to make it more reliable, more efficient, and reach a greater number of the population. We also need to expand bus only lanes throughout the city to shrink the difference between automobile and transit commute times; for working families transit commute times exceed automobile commute times by about 70% - 75% according to the Center for Housing Policy.

Third, we have to question whom the current transportation accommodates. The third article mentions that the Department of Transportation spent $71 billion this fiscal year on roads and bridges, $22 billion on public transit and more than $8 billion on rail projects. In places like Los Angeles, where our clogged freeways are known internationally, why do we continue to funnel billions of public dollars into projects that either A) benefit solely private industry like the freight industry or B) do not accommodate efficient and diverse transportation options for residents? What I find confusing is that a new survey indicates that the majority of voters in the Los Angeles region want to invest more in public transportation. We need to spend fewer of our scarce public resources on bloated highway expansion projects and more on transit that benefits the communities of Los Angeles.

Finally, the third article claims the “cash for clunkers” program was a missed opportunity to provide residents access to cheaper cars. I do not agree with this contention at least as it relates to California. Specifically, in California for years, we have had old-vehicle scrapping programs. These programs are vital for clean air in California. For context, the California Air Resources Board estimated that automobiles older than 15 years old in California represented about 20% of the entire fleet, but contributed 62% of the emissions. If a program is adopted to place low-income residents into cars, it should not conflict with California’s efforts to tackle its tough smog problems.

Overall, I think there are many policy solutions beyond simply making access to cars easier. My colleague Kristin Eberhard recommends the following solutions in her recent post:

Design communities to be less dependent on cars so that people have real options about mobility.
Increase frequency of service on existing bus and rail lines. If there is a bus that could get you where you need to go, but it only runs once an hour, it is hard to consider that a viable option for getting places on-time, because if you miss it once you are out of luck.
Improve the on-time performance of bus and rail. Again, if you are dependent on the bus to get to your job on-time and it is 10 or 15 minutes late, you might not have a job much longer. We need to be able to rely on transit to get us there on time.
Run rail lines at later times to encourage transit users to take public transportation at night and make lines safer so users feel protected when riding at night.
Create a more efficient, streamlined system to reduce transfer times thereby reducing transit times
Improve and expand the use of real time data to give riders better information about when their bus is actually going to come.
Build out new bus and rail lines and stop transit line cuts.
Create regional solutions that integrate fare options for a seamless rider experience. Right now you can use your TAP card on LA Metro and Culver City buses, but you have to have a separate pass for Big Blue Bus. I don’t have a car, so when I am trying to get around not just to work, but to meetings, to visit friends, etc, sometimes I need to utilize more than one bus system and it is a pain to have to figure out multiple fare systems. Expanding TAP to be a universal regional solution would make full-time bus-riding easier.

The LA Times has produced a thoughtful exposé of an industry thriving on the desperate economic times that many working poor families are facing. With that said, there is not one silver bullet solution. Overall, we need a system that is more flexible and convenient for the working poor. At least in the LA region, the voters have spoken and now it is time for our transportation planners and leaders to act upon these demands and inevitable solutions that Los Angeles needs.

What can the LA and Long Beach freight industry learn from the infamous Tuskegee experiment?

2011-10-28T16:29:20Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

Hudson Elementary School in Long Beach sits at the crossroads where learning your ABCs meets breathing your UFPs. UFP stands for Ultra-fine Particles, which are particles so tiny they can lodge deeply into young children’s lungs and even enter their blood stream leading to a myriad of health harms.

The railroad, shipping and trucking industries that dominate communities in the harbor area of Los Angeles and Long Beach are conducting a high stakes experiment on how much suffering and harm the primarily children of color attending schools like Hudson can handle. Ambivalent to the current domination of their lungs, leading to asthma rates at Hudson that is twice the national average, these industries are seeking to add several large-scale projects to the long list of already built projects that will add more diesel equipment near some harbor area schools. These proposed projects include the Port of Long Beach’s Pier S development, Burlington Northern and Santa Fe’s Southern California International Gateway project, and Union Pacific’s Intermodal Container Transfer Facility expansion project.

The expansion of the freight industry in the Los Angeles region is no longer simply an economic issue; it is also a moral issue. A recent article in UCLA Magazine tells the story of one of the casualties of the freight industrial complex’s desire to increase the toxic diesel-spewing trucks, ships and trains that allow us to move a myriad of products manufactured in China and other Asian countries to the shelves of stores in the United States.

The story discusses Peter, a student with asthma at Hudson Elementary. Unlike many of his other classmates with asthma, Peter suffers from a particular type of asthma that harms approximately 10 percent of the asthmatic kids at the school. In the article, they call it “uncontrolled asthma,” but I think the better term would be “Super Asthma.” It is an asthma so potent that it can crush a child’s lung like a Super Hero crushes its enemy. It is a cruel asthma unresponsive to modern treatments like inhalers. Instead, those who suffer from this asthma are often forced to go to the Emergency Room when the ailment takes over their body.

The story describes some of the ways that asthma has affected this young boy attending school near ground zero of Long Beach’s freight industrial complex. For example, Peter takes six medications daily. In addition, he is often deprived of such activities as playing outside. The article also discusses his mother’s fear when she is rendered somewhat helpless in relieving the pain and fear overcoming her child. To make matters worse, researchers at UCLA are figuring out that there may be a genetic connection between asthma and children. There is one genetic mutation that researchers have found has a causal connection with asthma. This genetic mutation includes a racial component because 70% of African Americans as opposed to 20% of the population-at-large carry this mutation.

Overall, the ports of LA and Long Beach have made laudable strides to clean up their filthy operations over the last five years. It was constant community struggle that brought these government-run businesses to actually clean up their acts. But, as the ports have trademarked their green brands, they have failed to take into account that their work to date is simply the tip of the iceberg. We continue to have a health epidemic in the harbor area, and yet projects that will add more diesel equipment are shoved down the throats of harbor area students, including Peter. And many of those most impacted are children of color. These casualties of the great freight race are children who to no fault of their own cannot play basketball, run outside, and even attend all their classes because an asthma attack forces them to miss school.

There are solutions; the ports need to actually move beyond the rhetoric of pushing electric technologies. A switch to electric technologies would result in dramatic reductions in the toxic pollutants currently spewed by the wide range of equipment necessary to move freight through the LA metro region. The ports have invested some money into these electric technologies, but they have been more concerned recently with pushing the diesel status quo instead of actually taking up this necessary wide scale electrification. I’m not saying it will be easy to shift from a diesel-dominated freight industrial complex to a cleaner, quieter electric system. But the transition is critical.

The facts and circumstances of the Tuskegee experiment, which had at its core rampant intentional discrimination, differ dramatically from the freight industrial complex. However, there is at least one salient thread that can relate to the health issues faced by the harbor area children. Specifically, the Tuskegee experiment shockingly lasted forty years. It has been approximately 15 years since the freight boom of the harbor area of LA and Long Beach. Yet, we currently understand the devastating impact this industry is having on the health and welfare of children in the harbor area. Are we going to wait another 25 years before we stop this experimentation on what are the bounds you can stretch the respiratory health of these children?

Until the industry, port leaders, and transportation planners really put their full force and effort to figuring out the electrification issue, children like Peter will continue to be subjects in this cruel experiment on their lungs. Let’s not make the same mistakes of the past.

Let's Not Gamble With Los Angeles' Garbage

2011-10-21T23:03:48Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

I posted a brief piece on waste issues in LA on the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy's blog called the Frying Pan. In the piece, I discuss the need for an exclusive franchise with strong standards for LA's system of handling waste from large apartment buildings and businesses. You can read the post here.

Team NRDC Takes Climate Ride 2011 by STORM!!

2011-10-05T17:03:10Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

Today is the third day of Climate Ride California 2011. Climate Ride is a 320 mile, 5 day charitable bicycle ride that seeks to raise awareness and funds for the health of the planet. The funds raised go to a wide variety of organizations ranging from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to NRDC. NRDC has eleven members riding on its team, including lawyers, scientists, policy analysts, and supporters. Numerous other riders have donated their fundraising to NRDC’s work on sustainable communities, which engages cities in the fight against global climate change.

I find it very exciting to ride side by side with people from all over the country and world who are serious about developing proactive solutions to the climate crisis. The riders are Olympic champions, professional musicians, scientists, architects, green business entrepreneurs, and numerous other talented people who have come together to push for a clean energy future. This is the first year that NRDC has been a beneficiary of Climate Ride. It’s humbling to benefit from the generous donations of so many cyclists working hard to raise funds for environmental protection.

So, here is a quick recap of the days to date. The first day was a beautiful 60+ mile day through the redwood forest. Monday, we experienced torrential downpour on the road, but the enthusiasm and perseverance of the many riders propelled them to make it more than 50 miles. Tuesday, we rode in a mix of sun, rain, and sleet to make it 100 miles into a campsite on the Russian River. Over that 100 miles, I had the chance to talk and ride with folks from New York, California, Montana, Virginia and South Carolina.

It is amazing to be on a trip with so many people willing to raise funds and awareness of climate change and the need for a clean energy future. Even though there are only 130 of us riding Climate Ride California, there is a lot of energy and excitement. You can find out more about NRDC’s team of riders by reading a recent post from my colleague, Amanda Eaken, here.

More jobs, cleaner air one trashcan (and recycle bin) at a time in LA

2011-07-27T00:15:07Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

Last week, Los Angeles hosted an environmental stakeholder meeting to discuss potential reform to the way the City handles waste and recycling. This meeting is one in a series of stakeholder meetings that includes business, hauling, labor and community interests. Overall, environmental organizations endorsed making the current waste collection system more efficient system by moving to an exclusive franchise approach.

Here’s a brief synopsis of the issue: Despite significant efforts to increase recycling rates, the City still sends somewhere between 3 and 4 million tons of waste to landfills annually. Approximately 70 percent of this waste comes from large apartment buildings and businesses. Under the current permit system for apartment buildings (called “multi-family” sector) and businesses (called “commercial” sector), the City cannot effectively create conditions for hauling waste for the city.

Hauling trash is an essential public service and companies providing this service can make a hefty profit. It appears that pretty much all parties to this debate have conceded that a franchise system makes sense as opposed to the permit system free-for-all that currently exists. However, the current disagreement centers on whether that franchise is exclusive or not.

While I don’t agree with the arguments against an exclusive franchise and for increased use of waste-to-energy projects (often called "waste conversion technologies") in Ron Saldana’s op-ed in the LA Business Journal, it crystallizes the point of some of the opponents to an exclusive franchise system. However, the environmental stakeholder meeting confirmed that environmental groups overwhelmingly support the exclusive franchise model based on this non-exhaustive list of reasons:

Increasing our recycling rates reduces harmful air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and creates more jobs. For every one job in a landfill, there are 10 jobs created through recycling, and even more job creation can happen through reuse of materials. At the meeting environmental groups argued an exclusive franchise will translate into maximum diversion and recycling because it will result in long-term, comprehensive partnerships – and planning – between hauler, city and community. It will allow for uniform public education, city or franchise area-wide rate incentives for recycling, and greater investment in diversion infrastructure and goals because the waste company will be competing for, and benefiting from, economies of scale and heightened efficiencies. This creates the potential for genuinely meeting and even exceeding recycling goals. It also allows for more oversight to make sure materials are actually recycled. Currently, the City claims that approximately 70 percent of the waste is being recycled or diverted from landfills; however, because of the nature of the status quo system, we cannot verify that we have actually reached these rates of diversion. Also, it is a misunderstanding that an exclusive franchise system would not foster competition. The opposite is true; it would force companies to compete to see who can do better. It will not just set a floor that companies would need to meet.
The City needs a system that minimizes the use and operation of garbage trucks. Garbage trucks are amongst the most polluting vehicles on the road, getting on average three miles to the gallon. Under the current system, a block containing many apartment buildings can have more than two companies servicing that same block, which means at least double the trips by these gas guzzling vehicles, double the traffic and double the pollution spewed by the idling trucks. This wasteful, inefficient practice, increases air and noise pollution and makes our neighborhoods and commercial areas less safe. While new trucks are cleaner than older trucks, we still need to reduce overall operation because even the newer trucks still emit significant pollution and use precious fuel resources. As we all know, Los Angeles can ill afford to have more pollution given our poor air quality. The exclusive franchise ensures only necessary truck trips are made, which prevents overlapping truck routes.
Inefficient use of garbage trucks also has impacts on our city streets, which requires use of our scarce city funding. Pavement Engineering, Inc. estimated that one garbage truck has the equivalent impact of 9,343 Sport Utility Vehicles (see following chart from the Bay Area Pothole Report for June 2011).

By ensuring more efficient operation of garbage trucks throughout our neighborhoods and commercial district, the City can cut down on overlapping routes, which means it can reduce the potholes that currently scour our streets. Money spent repaving our streets can now go to better uses like expanding pedestrian and other infrastructure vital to our community.

Overall, an exclusive franchise with strong standards makes sense for Los Angeles. It most effectively allows the city to address two goals concurrently; 1) reduce harmful air pollution and 2) recycle more, which will reduce our carbon footprint, create more jobs, and reduce our dependence on space hogging landfills.

Smog Lawsuit Spurs Self Reflection for the LA Region

2011-07-20T00:21:47Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

Today, the LA Times reported on a lawsuit filed by health, environmental and environmental justice groups filed yesterday in the Los Angeles region. Later in the day, LA Times reporter Paul Whitefield took to the Opinion LA blog analyzing the comments received about that article and litigation effort, including opining that “Los Angeles survived Carmageddon. But Ozonegeddon may be a tougher nut to crack.”

Coping with the serious health threats from high levels of smog imposes serious impositions on children, the elderly and residents throughout the region. Moreover, we need to use this moment in time to get more serious about reducing smog pollution, including reducing our dependence on foreign oil by promoting cleaner transportation solutions.

The LA Times opinion piece ends with three points that are hard to argue with. These arguments are as follows.

First:

The Los Angeles area has a long history of elevated ozone levels, and the American Lung Assn., in its annual State of the Air report, recently determined that the region has the highest ozone level in the nation.

Second:

“Angelenos continue to breathe smoggy air that makes people sick, forcing mothers to question whether to allow children to play outside on dirty air days,” said Adrian Martinez, an attorney for the NRDC. "These are choices mothers should not have to make."

And third:

In Los Angeles, an estimated 1 million adults and 300,000 children have asthma, outranking 23 other congested cities, according to the American Lung Assn.'s 2011 State of the Air report.

Overall, LA has made strides to reduce air pollution, but we continue to have a health crisis related to air pollution. Missing any deadlines imposed by the Clean Air Act should be taken extremely seriously, especially for places like LA. That is why physicians joined environmental and community groups seeking to uphold EPA's duties under the Clean Air Act.

Note: the initial post incorrectly referred to the opinion piece appearing in the LAT Blowback section, it appears in the Opinion LA blog.

Physicians and Advocacy Groups Demand Cleaner Air In Los Angeles

2011-07-18T20:58:45Z

Adrian Martinez, Staff Attorney, Environmental Justice, Santa Monica, California

It’s been slightly more than 60 days since we, along with Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles and environmental justice groups filed a letter of intent to sue the EPA for failing to enforce the Clean Air Act in the Los Angeles region. Two months ago, I wrote about the failure of the EPA to enforce smog requirements in the Los Angeles region. You can read the post here. You can also read the Earthjustice press release on the effort here.

Because of EPA’s inaction, today, several groups are suing the EPA in federal court in Los Angeles for its failure to abide by and enforce Clean Air Act requirements. The Los Angeles region is still the smoggiest in the nation according to the American Lung Association’s 2011 State of the Air report and people daily suffer the real-world consequences of our failure to meet smog standards.

These consequences include asthma, premature death, and the related health problems that come along with illegal levels of pollution. For these compelling reasons, Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles joined with environmental and environmental justice advocates today to make sure EPA complies with federal clean air laws designed to protect our lungs. Right now, they’re in jeopardy. Through filing these lawsuits, physicians, community residents and environmentalists seek to enforce our rights to breathe cleaner air.