Richmond, CA – On Friday January 13, 2006, Assemblywoman Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) and California Integrated Waste Management Board Chair Rosario Marin presented a $298,841 Waste Tire Enforcement Grant to Contra Costa Health Services, Environmental Health Division. The presentation took place at Pick-N-Pull Auto Dismantlers on Market Avenue, in Richmond.

This grant is one of 38 approved by the California Integrated Waste Management Board in 2005, part of a total award of more than $5.2 million to local jurisdictions statewide.  These grants help prevent tires from being illegally dumped by assisting local governments in their efforts to inspect waste tire facilities and generation points, investigate complaints and examine waste tire hauler registration and manifest reports.  Contra Costa Health Services will use the funds to inventory and monitor nearly 700 waste tire facilities located throughout the county.  They will set up an inspection and maintenance monitoring program and database which will help ensure that waste tires go to the proper disposal facilities and are not illegally dumped.

“Discarded tires create environmental and health hazards in our neighborhoods and along roadsides. They provide a breeding place for mosquitoes, a very serious concern with the increase in West Nile virus. Contra Costa County can reduce these hazards by recycling tires with this grant,” stated Hancock.

California produces nearly 34 million waste tires annually. More than 75 percent are successfully recycled, leaving an illegal stockpile of 5-8 million waste tires. In 2003, the Board began requiring waste tire handlers—generators, haulers, and end users—to comply with a used tire manifest program designed to effectively report and track waste tires in the state.

Similar grants have been recently awarded to Alameda County as well as the cities of Berkeley and Oakland.