Signal Tribune Newspaper

By Steven Piper
Editorial Intern

Signal Hill residents will soon benefit from employment opportunities and over $1 million worth of land remediation as the solid-waste disposal company EDCO moves forward with its plans to construct an administrative terminal on the southwest corner of California Avenue and 27th Street. The site encompasses 103,000 square feet (2.48 acres) and 12 oil wells.
EDCO President Steve South said the project will be an attractive addition to the surrounding community. “We are family owned and operated, and we want to put up a terrific facility that is state-of-the-art,” South said.
While providing customer, administrative and maintenance services, the new location will also enhance the company’s overall logistics by complementing the EDCO Recycling and Transfer facility (ER&T), which is one block north of the new project. “We are hoping to get it done in about a year. It should be done in 2011,” South said.
Overnight parking will be available at the terminal, which offers 40 truck stalls, allowing collection vehicles to offload at the ER&T facility and drive only a couple of blocks to end their routes. According to South, trucks parked in the terminal will have routes serving Seal Beach, Long Beach, and possibly Lakewood.
In addition to parking for the trucks, there will also be 30 standard onsite stalls for employees. “The terminal will offer attractive landscaping, onsite parking, and a walk-up office for residents in the community,” South said.
The main entrance of the building is located on 27th Street, providing quick access to California Avenue in addition to collection routes. Emergency access to the site will also be available on the southern edge of the location.
J.R. Miller & Associates, Inc., Architects & Engineers, created the building’s design and is responsible for site planning in addition to graphic renderings of the completed project.
Recently, the firm has finished similar projects such as the Puente Hills Material Recovery Facility and the North Transfer Station and Material Recovery Facility in Phoenix, Ariz.
As a family-owned business, EDCO has been serving Southern California for more than 40 years. Edward Burr and his wife Sandra founded the disposal company in 1967 as the solid-waste hauler for the City of La Mesa. Burr originally entered the industry as an owner and operator of a single truck.
Over the years, by focusing on customer service, the refuse-collecting company acquired other similarly sized, family-owned waste-disposal companies in the area and eventually across five Southern California counties: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Bernardino, Orange, and Riverside. EDCO is now the largest family-held solid-waste management company in California, with 13 material-recovery facilities and transfer stations throughout Southern California.
Recently, EDCO has worked to meet the requirements of the California Air Resource Board (ARB) Collection Vehicle Rule for emission standards, which was passed in 2003 to reduce health hazards from the exhaust of diesel-fueled collection trucks.
The solid-waste collection vehicle (SWCV) regulation requires that cancer-causing matter and nitrogen oxide emissions, which contribute to smog formation, be reduced by using ARB-approved technology.
South said that all EDCO collection trucks utilize compressed natural gas (CNG).