Baldwin Park is keeping up its fight against a proposed trash sorting facility on the Irwindale border.
A draft environmental report was recently completed for the project — a material recovery facility planned for a 17-acre site at Live Oak Avenue and Arrow Highway in Irwindale.
But a consultant hired by Baldwin Park to review the document believes the report, prepared by Irwindale, is inadequate and should be re-written and redistributed.
“It doesn’t reveal all of the likely environmental impacts of the project, or it understates them,” said Dan Sicular, a senior managing associate with the San Francisco-based environmental consulting firm ESA.
Irwindale officials are currently preparing responses to Baldwin Park’s comments, and are also in negotiations with trash hauler Athens Services for a development agreement.
Athens wants to sort recyclables from garbage at the site, before sending the remaining trash to a landfill. They claim state-of-the-art facilities will mitigate any potential health risks to both MRF employees and nearby residents.
It should be pointed out Athens isn’t the only one interested in the Irwindale site. Valley County Water District wants to purchase just under 2 acres of the land to build two water storage tanks.
The tanks — which would hold an estimated 3 million gallons of water each — would be built above ground on the land’s southwest corner, said Brian Dickinson, the district’s general manager.
He wouldn’t comment on ongoing negotiations with Irwindale.
