Scrap Metal Recycler Meets Opposition to Planned Auto Shredder

Local opposition to a proposed auto shredder has set back a California company’s plans to install an auto shredder at the company’s Mare Island facility in Vallejo, Calif.

Alco Metals & Iron Co., which began in San Leandro, Calif., more than 50 years ago, had decided to build a shredder on a facility that it purchased around four years ago on a former Navy base. The facility is 15 acres, and the company already has a scrap metal recycling facility on the site.

However, after undergoing a significant amount of research into the impact the shredder would have on the location, there appeared to be some movement toward authorizing the project. Michael Bercovich, a spokesman for Alco, said that after doing research, including an impact study required by the California Environmental Quality Act, the company submitted its proposal last April. The proposal included plans, drawing and an environmental study.

By the end of last year the city had requested an environmental review of the operation. The company came back in July with the information and the city sent it out to public comment.

Bercovich says that while the city’s Planning Department was read to approve the project, comments from opponents, including what the company says were comments from competitors, stymied the project. This despite the fact that Alco spend several million dollars to improve the facility, and the facility was zoned for heavy industry.

After the opposition to the project became widespread, the city now is calling for the company to perform an environmental impact report, which will take a better part of a year to be completed.

The company, which purchased the site with the idea that an auto shredding facility would be ideally suited for the location, is now apprising the overall situation and trying to decide what they plan on doing. Bercovich notes that the company is looking at a number of steps, including where the company wants to go, if the facility can be approved, and how the company can compete with the competition in the area.

The company had originally looked at a mega shredder, but now is opting to scale the size a bit. "We went from an 8,000 horsepower shredder to a 6,000 hp shredder.

While the company has several other locations, Bercovich says that the company targeted this facility due to the traffic flow from the Sacramento area, its access to many main freeways, and the space available on the yard.