Kern Supervisors Approve Permits for First California Steel Mill in Decades

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The Kern County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved Pacific Steel Group's plans to develop a scrap metal recycling and steel rebar mill in eastern Kern.

With its completion, the mill would be the first constructed in California in more than 50 years.

“Today not a pound of steel is manufactured in the state of California,” said Mark Olson, the vice president of mill operations for Pacific Steel Group, adding that statewide, Californians use more than one million tons of reinforcing steel each year. “And a hundred percent of that is brought in.”

Spanning 174 acres of privately owned, yet largely undeveloped land, the project would be located on the southeast corner of Sierra Highway and Sopp Road in Mojave. It will be surrounded mostly by industrial land but also adjacent to a solar array site owned by Edwards Air Force Base.

This project has been in the works for years, pushed by L.A.-based Pacific Steel Group, which is investing more than $540 million into a project with a total value of $1.2 billion.

Olson continued to say that California also has an abundance of scrap metal, most of which he said is shipped overseas or to other states such as Utah, Oregon and Washington.

“This project will demonstrate global performance in steel manufacturing,” Olson said.

Housed in a 489,200-square-foot steel mill and 61,000-square-foot accessory structure, the plant would produce rebar steel from scrap metal discarded by shredded vehicles, appliances and sheet metal. It will be powered mainly through a 63-acre solar array onsite capable of producing 10 megawatts. 

The proposal includes a conditional use permit to allow on-site carbon capture and temporary storage — the first brought before the Kern supervisors — as well as an on-site water treatment plant with water piped in from the Antelope Valley East Kern Water District. Olson said Pacific Steel hopes to capture nearly 80% of CO2 emissions derived from the plant, to be either transported offsite to be sold or for “industrial uses.”

Emma De La Rosa, an advocate with Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, questioned the effectiveness of carbon capture, saying there has yet to be credible proof that the practice works in safely removing carbon emissions from the atmosphere.

“I think you have already heard from folks many times that (they) are concerned that Kern County is being used as a guinea pig for this CO2 technology,” De La Rosa said. “It has not been proven to be effective and yet there is still a lot of consideration for these projects.”

In response, Kern Planning and Natural Resources Director Lorelei Oviatt said those concerns were legitimate but reiterated that this is not a carbon capture project.

“The only thing we are requiring is a conditional use permit to put capture equipment on an industry to capture their CO2,” Oviatt said.

An estimated 500 workers would be hired in a two-year construction period. Once operational, Oviatt said, the plant would run around the clock and employ about 400 full-time workers.

“This is a home run,” said Richard Chapman, president of the Kern Economic Development Corp.

In other business, the Board of Supervisors:

• Approved a retroactive agreement for the construction and management of two new Kern psychiatric health facilities.

The first would allocate $9.16 million for a Kern Psychiatric Health Facility in Bakersfield, to be managed by Telecare Corp., which would admit both involuntary and voluntary patients that are either Medi-Cal beneficiaries or uninsured. The facility is planned to open by mid-June with a $7.1 million operating budget in the 2024-25 fiscal year.

Secondly, the county allocated $10.4 million for Central Star to manage the Kern Youth Psychiatric Health Facility in Bakersfield, which would provide the aforementioned services to minors.

Much like Telecare, this is a retroactive agreement; Central Star began preparing for this operator role in January, with an expected opening date in June. The expected operating cost in 2024-25 is $7.8 million.

These buildings have been in the process for years, said Louis Groce, a spokesman with Kern Behavioral Health and Recovery Services.

• Allowed the Kern County Sheriff’s Office to appropriate $476,328 in unanticipated revenue from Assembly Bill 109 Realignment funds to pay for upgrades to the generator at the Lerdo Pre-Trial Facility. The money will cover costs for “supplemental work” required to complete the upgrades.

• Recognized results for the 2023 Kern County Cares Canned Food Drive. With a prior goal of 125,000 pounds, the group reported that it collected an estimated 140,725 pounds of food. This includes 94,270 pounds of food and $22,807 the county fundraised across 25 of its departments.

Top Kern donors and fundraisers included: the county administrative office, Board of Supervisors, clerk of the board, countywide communications and human services department. The money will go toward Golden Empire Gleaners, a local charity focused on food insecurity.

 Courtesy: www.bakersfield.com