Neighbors Want Scrap Yard to Clean Up Its Act : Environment: Homeowners and boaters demand less noise and cleaner air and water at Hugo Neu-Proler, which seeks a lease renewal. Labor leaders fear possible job losses.

Harbor area boat and homeowner groups have asked the Port of Los Angeles to demand sharp reductions in noise, air and water pollution at the Hugo Neu-Proler scrap yard, which wants the port to renew its 27-year Terminal Island lease.

Labor leaders, meanwhile, have warned harbor officials not to take steps that would endanger the 165 jobs at the yard, where discarded cars, refrigerators and other metal refuse are shredded and the scrap is loaded aboard ships for export.

The requests came during two public hearings Wednesday on an Environmental Impact Report that is considered key to determining whether Hugo Neu-Proler will be granted another 27-year lease. The company’s current lease expires Aug. 31, 1994.

Louisa Gratz, president of the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union Local 26, asked port officials presiding over the hearings to take the scrap yard’s workers into account.

“We don’t want to see people lose their homes and the ability to send their children to college,” Gratz said.

But boaters and homeowners called for tighter regulation of the scrap yard. Although Hugo Neu-Proler has made progress in cleaning up its operations, they acknowledged, the 26-acre yard still generates too much dust and noise.

“It’s certainly a lot quieter than it was a year and a half ago,” Claire Randall, vice president of the 1,100-member Los Angeles Harbor Boat Owners Assn., told port officials. “But it’s still over the legal limit. We don’t want the company driven out of the harbor or for people to lose their jobs, but it’s not fair for them to (operate) the way they do now.”

Specifically, the boat owners group wants Hugo Neu-Proler to do a detailed noise study. “See, every time the ship loads, the noise and dust emissions are different according to the weather conditions and grade of material,” Randall said. The study, she said, would help the company modify operations to reduce its effect on nearby marinas and homes.

The boat owners also want the company to load scrap onto ships with a crane, which would make less noise than the conveyor belt Hugo Neu-Proler now uses. Said Randall: “(A crane) actually lowers (scrap) into the hold of the ship so when it drops, the sound is dramatically less.”

JoAnn Wysocki, president of the Wilmington Home Owners group, pointed out that city ordinances forbid loud, public noises after 10 p.m. and asked why the scrap yard continues operating past that hour.

She also reeled off a list of steps her group wants taken: an independent report on the scrap yard’s cleanup and expansion projects; monthly, unannounced inspections to monitor air and dust emissions, water quality and noise levels for one year, and the installation of noise and dust sensors in nearby marinas.

Neither port officials nor Hugo Neu-Proler representatives answered questions posed during Wednesday’s public hearings.

Hugo Neu-Proler is a privately owned joint venture between Houston-based Proler International Corp. and New York-based Hugo Neu & Sons Inc. The company, which recycles and exports more than 60% of all the discarded scrap metal in the Los Angeles area, generates about $3 million annually for the Port of Los Angeles.

The company has been dogged by environmental regulators, who have cited the scrap yard for discharging polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, into the harbor and keeping mounds of contaminated dirt on the premises.

The port has already determined that Hugo Neu-Proler must clean up soil and ground water contamination at the site and upgrade or replace facilities and equipment as a condition for getting a lease renewal.

The cleanup work is to be overseen by the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control Division, as well as the port. Port officials have said the cleanup could cost at least $10 million, but it is unclear whether the port will help Hugo Neu-Proler bear the cost.

Hugo Neu-Proler’s general manger, John Prudent, said it was premature to discuss the port’s still-unfinished cleanup plan and the additional steps requested by boaters and homeowners. But he said his company will try to accommodate its neighbors’ concerns.

Said Prudent: “We’ve been in business here for 30 years and definitely want to stay in business here.”