Wilmington Wary of Scrap Yard Plans : Neighborhoods: Discussions are under way to move the facility from San Pedro, where it has been declared a nuisance. Community activists fear dust, noise and visual blight.

A San Pedro scrap yard that was declared a public nuisance this week for its blight, noise and traffic may be moved to east Wilmington’s waterfront under a plan that has drawn fire from that community’s residents and businesses.

The proposal, now under discussion between Hiuka America Corp. and the Port of Los Angeles, calls for the company to close its much-criticized 20-acre site at 2000 N. Gaffey St. and open a new dockside yard at Berth 200A, about two miles from the company’s current shipping terminal near the San Pedro/Wilmington border.

The plan represents Hiuka’s latest bid for a port site that would make its operation more efficient and end complaints about its San Pedro yard. The complaints, by residents of San Pedro and Rancho Palos Verdes, have dogged Hiuka since it opened the yard in 1986.

This week, city of Los Angeles zoning officials declared the yard a nuisance. They threatened to shut it down unless Hiuka reduces the yard’s impact on surrounding communities by July. One of the measures the city mandated is a reduction of the yard’s hours; it now operates almost around the clock.

But while those steps were taken by the city against Hiuka’s San Pedro yard, Wilmington’s residents and businesses are asking for similar protections for their community.

On Thursday, for example, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley was questioned about the proposal during a community breakfast meeting in Wilmington. Noting the anger shown by many residents, Bradley said, “I know there is a fear that everything is being dumped on Wilmington.”

But Bradley said he has met with officials of Hiuka and the port and has been told that the dockside yard for processing and exporting scrap metal would be “state of the art.”

“They have given us every assurance they will be responsible operators,” Bradley said.

Whether such assurances will satisfy Wilmington, however, is doubtful.

“We’re going to fight it all the way,” Bob Scott, president of Distribution and Auto Service Inc., said earlier this week as meetings continued between port and community officials over the Hiuka proposal. Scott said his company, which operates an 84-acre storage yard and distribution point for 10,000 new cars and trucks, would be threatened if Hiuka relocates next to his business.

“I think we would lose every account we have,” Scott said. “Nobody wants to have their new autos and trucks parked next to a place where there would be so much dust.”

Similarly, many Wilmington residents objected to the possible move by Hiuka, arguing that it would bring their community more industry and more problems.

“Of course we are frustrated. Of course we are going to object,” said John Roberts, a Wilmington resident. “Wilmington has got to be the most forgotten, the most forlorn community in the South Bay.”

Roberts’ comments came after an hourlong meeting Tuesday between port officials and two dozen Wilmington residents and business owners about the possible relocation of Hiuka.

The meeting, several residents said, represented some progress in getting the port to pay attention to community concerns. “Ten years ago, there wouldn’t have been a meeting. They wouldn’t be interested in what Wilmington had to say,” said Peter Mendoza, president of Wilmington Home Owners.

At the same time, the tone and detail of the discussion led many to believe that the port and Hiuka have already reached tentative agreement on relocating the San Pedro operations to the port. “It sounded to me . . . like it’s probably going in,” said an angry Gertrude Schwab, a longtime Wilmington activist.

But port officials and Hiuka President David Creigh denied that talks have been anything more than preliminary. They also emphasized that any move is two to three years away and must be preceded by an environmental report with comments from area residents, businesses and other agencies, including the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

“It is absolutely super-preliminary,” Creigh said.

Creigh noted that Hiuka has twice before been turned down by the port in applying for waterfront sites.

But in separate interviews, Creigh and Tay Yoshitani, the port’s deputy executive director of maritime affairs, also said the proposal to relocate Hiuka promises more benefits than problems for Wilmington and the area.

“It’s a long way from being a reality, but it is a project that we think has a lot of merit” in resolving Hiuka’s problems and existing complaints, Yoshitani said.

Chief among those complaints are the noise and unsightliness of the scrap yard, which can be seen from homes in San Pedro and Rancho Palos Verdes, as well as traffic and hazards from the heavily laden trucks that rumble along local streets.

The issues of noise, dust, traffic and visual blight would be minimized if Hiuka were to build a scrap facility like the one it recently opened in Long Beach, Yoshitani said. That facility, while much smaller than the one proposed for Wilmington, is designed to look like a warehouse and incorporates a 30-foot-high sound wall of concrete and canvas, he said.

Yoshitani and Creigh also noted that opening a waterfront yard would eliminate the heavy truck traffic between Hiuka’s San Pedro facility and the dock, from which it exports scrap to the Far East. By Creigh’s reckoning, that could mean 100,000 fewer truck trips a year in Wilmington, a community long overwhelmed by traffic.

Finally, they noted that the topography and location of Hiuka’s current site make it difficult, if not impossible, to build a modern facility similar to the one that could be built in Wilmington. The hills near its San Pedro site, Creigh said, not only echo noise but leave Hiuka’s facility in plain view of nearby neighborhoods--two problems that would not exist in Wilmington.

But Wilmington’s residents and business owners countered that their community has already been burdened by industries other communities reject. And they noted that Hiuka’s one possible benefit for Wilmington--reducing truck traffic--should already be covered by recent pledges from the port and City Hall to stem truck traffic along streets in the community.

While the debate raged over relocating Hiuka to the port, Creigh said the company will go to court to challenge new regulations imposed on its San Pedro yard. Those regulations include a new 20-foot height limit on scrap piles, shutting the yard on Sundays and limiting hours of operation to 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. The yard now can operate from 6 a.m. to 3 a.m., hours that coincide with ship loading at the port.

Pending the outcome of its legal challenge, Creigh said, Hiuka will abide by the regulations.