Acting out of concern for their neighboring city, the Palo Alto City Council halted approval of a contract with a hazardous-waste handler deemed dangerous by East Palo Alto city council members.
In a 7-2 vote, the council pulled the contract with Romic Environmental Technologies off its routine list of items to approve and sent it back to staff to research alternatives.
In December, several council members in East Palo Alto protested Romic’s continued presence in the city after workers were injured cleaning up hazardous materials from 1995 to 2006. In 2005, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control fined the company $850,000 for violations.
The council will review the issue next week.
