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).

Construction of EDCO’s materials recovery-and-transfer station in Signal Hill could begin by spring of 2010. On Tuesday night, the Signal Hill City Council approved the last in a series of agreements between the city and Buena Park-based EDCO, giving the company the entitlements it needs to start work on the project.
EDCO, which also uses the name Signal Hill Disposal, has been the city’s waste hauler since 1986. The company plans to build the facility on a 3.75-acre site near the intersection of California Avenue and Patterson Street.
“We have been working with EDCO for three years on this,” said Deputy City Manager Charlie Honeycutt. He explained that, in negotiations with the city, EDCO officials have agreed to regulations pertaining to how the facility will operate, its hours of operations, the routes trucks must follow to and from the facility, litter cleanup, and a list of other regulations designed to minimize the facility’s impact on the community.
On Tuesday, the city council approved an ordinance granting a 15-year exclusive franchise to EDCO Transport Services, LLC to operate the plant. The materials recovery-and-transfer station will help the region comply with a state law requiring municipalities to divert 75 percent of their trash to recycling facilities. Cities throughout the region will use the EDCO plant to accomplish that goal. Signal Hill will get a portion of the fee charged for every load brought to the facility.
“This is a win-win for Signal Hill and for EDCO,” said Councilman Mike Noll.
City Attorney Dave Aleshire noted that in about two weeks city and EDCO officials will sign all the agreements approved by the city council. He added that it will take about two months to remove oil wells from the site and about two months after that to grade the land. Construction of the facility could begin soon thereafter.
In another action, the council approved a three-year contract with Willdan Engineering for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) services. CDBG is a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program that provides grant money for certain types of city projects. Kathy Sorensen, director of community development, has been managing the city’s CDBG projects for several years, but she is planning to retire soon. City Manager Ken Farfsing told the council that the city will need Willdan’s services after Sorensen has retired.
Toward the end of the meeting, the council and staff also discussed Farfsing’s annual performance review. “The city council is in complete agreement that the city manager is doing a tremendous job,” Honeycutt said. He noted that Farfsing successfully navigated the city through a series of challenges during the last 12 months– the biggest of those was managing a city budget with significant revenue reductions. Honeycutt noted that Farfsing’s contract called for a five-percent salary increase this year, but Farfsing declined taking it because of the city’s budget crunch.
After Honeycutt’s brief presentation, the council members took turns praising Farfsing for his leadership abilities. Farfsing stressed that it was a team effort, and he gave credit to the department heads for finding ways to reduce the budgets of their respective departments while still providing needed services to the community.
The next meeting of the city council is scheduled for 7pm on Tuesday, Nov. 17 in the council chambers of Signal Hill City Hall.