A waste-to-energy refuse facility won’t appear any time soon on the site of the former Levitz Factory Showroom in North Atwater, according to Glendale city staff, Pelanconi Estates Homeowners Association leadership, and Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge‘s staff. Rumors that Los Angeles plans to build a new waste-processing plant in that area have been circulating in Glendale and Atwater.
According to an email Sunroom Desk received from LaBonge’s office:
…the Mayor and City Council have committed to build a new Alternative Technology Site within each of the city’s six solid wastesheds, and each council member was asked to identify a potential site in his/her council district to be studied by the Bureau of Sanitation for this purpose. Councilman LaBonge suggested the River Glen area of Atwater, near the Levitz site but not necessarily the existing building. The Bureau of Sanitation is currently conducting an analysis of this and other sites around the City and will report their findings and feasibility recommendations to the Council members.
City council candidate Lenore Solis has warned that the facility is being planned with the Levitz property as a short-listed site, and that hundreds of trucks could be driving refuse loads daily to the North Atwater/Glendale border. Solis brought the issue to the February 17, 2009 Glendale city council meeting during oral communications. Following her comments, both Public Works Director Stephen Zurn and City Manager Jim Starbird replied in response to Mayor John Drayman’s inquiry that Los Angeles had no proposals on the table, and that the city of Glendale is on record as strongly opposing such a site (link here to the video archive of the meeting; Solis’ comments begin at 3 hours, 2 minutes into the meeting, followed by the responses of Zurn and Starbird.)
Solis also brought up the issue at the March 2, 2009 Glendale Homeowners’ Coordinating Council meeting. Pelanconi Estate Homeowners Association President Patrick Masihi differed with Solis, cited the inputs from Zurn and Starbird, and stated that the city of Los Angeles has no published plans or proposals for such a facility.
The city of Los Angeles has conducted a three-year round of workshops throughout its districts on the subject of future solid waste disposal options. The next workshop scheduled for the North-Central district (which includes Atwater) is next Tuesday, March 24, 6 p.m., and the Los Angeles Citywide Zero Waste Conference is Saturday, May 30, 2009, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Locations and other information are published on this meeting announcement.
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