Senator Jerry Hill Legislation

Jerry Hill Introduces Legislation to Require State Regulation of Automobile Shredding Facilities

Senate Bill 1249 Would Require Department of Toxic Substances Control to Adopt Regulations

SACRAMENTO – State Senator Jerry Hill, chairman of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, today introduced legislation that would require shredded automobile material to undergo regulation by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC).

Roughly 700,000 tons of this waste -- also called fluff -- is disposed of in the state’s landfills each year.  But state toxics regulators have failed to revoke an exemption granted decades ago to the metal shredding industry, despite warnings from top scientists that this waste could become hazardous during the shredding process.  A 2001 legal opinion by DTSC attorneys called the exemption “outdated and legally incorrect.”

Six fires have broken out at metal recycling facilities in the Bay Area since 2007, five of them at facilities owned by Sims Metal Management LTD. Three occurred at the company’s facility in Redwood City, which Hill, D-San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, represents. After the last two fires in November and December, Redwood City leaders called on regulators to do more to help protect residents from future incidents.

In 2011, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency inspectors discovered PCBs, mercury, lead, copper and zinc in Redwood Creek and San Francisco Bay around the Sims plant. Levels of toxic PCBs in Redwood Creek were 10,000 times what would be normally expected in soil, while lead and copper were 10 to 15 times greater than acceptable levels. The recycling company was also cited by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District after a 2007 fire. In 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service accused Sims of allowing fibrous automobile shredder residue to blow or drift into wetlands around Bair Island, 800 feet downwind of the facility.

Hill’s legislation - SB 1249 - would rescind exemptions for facilities that deal with vehicle shredder waste and require DTSC to develop regulations to ensure that treatment, transport and disposal are done in a manner that protects public health and the environment.  The legislation would also provide for better DTSC oversight of the industry to prevent contamination, explosions or other risks to California communities.

“This bill allows California’s toxics regulators to do their job and protect public health,” Hill said.  “We shouldn’t be exempting waste from regulation if it contains known carcinogens.”

In 1988 the state created an exemption or “variance” for these automobile waste recyclers from hazardous waste handling and disposal laws, which has resulted in little to no regulatory oversight of this waste stream.  At the time, the assertion was that the waste, once treated, does not release the contaminants into the environment. 

However, in 2002, DTSC conducted an auto shredder initiative that found both treated and untreated shredder waste exceeded state regulatory thresholds for lead, zinc and cadmium.  In the report produced as a result of the initiative, a DTSC scientist recommended that DTSC “rescind all previously issued nonhazardous waste classifications for treated shredder waste.” The DTSC scientist studied fluff and found that at least two facilities exceeded the state’s threshold for zinc and cadmium and that varying levels of PCBs were found in all the samples he tested. Yet no action was taken by DTSC.

Six years later, Maureen Gorsen, the department’s director in 2008, sent a letter to the shredder industry stating the exemption needed to repealed and automobile waste managed “to ensure the safety of public health and the environment from harmful exposures of toxins.” But the industry successfully fought the proposed changes and again, no action was taken.

CONTACT: Aurelio Rojas 916-747-3199 cell; Leslie Guevarra 415-298-3404 cell 

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Nate Solov

Office of Senator Jerry Hill

916-651-4013

www.senate.ca.gov/hill