L.A. Says State Limits Would Force Landfill to Close

Lopez Canyon Landfill, which accepts half of Los Angeles’ garbage, would have to shut down to meet restrictions imposed by the state Waste Management Board, the director of the city’s Bureau of Sanitation said Tuesday.

Those restrictions include reducing the height and size of the dump and cutting back the number of trucks dumping there daily. The board is also considering reducing the amount of trash the landfill can accept, from 4,000 to 3,100 tons a day.

However, sanitation director Delwin A. Biagi said the city will appeal the restrictions at a waste board meeting Friday in Sacramento. He criticized the board for overreacting to public outcry against the dump.

“I begin to wonder what the Waste Management Board’s job is,” Biagi said. “I thought that they were there to keep a focus on solid waste management and on its future. But it seems like they’re on some sort of a kick now.”

Biagi said the restrictions, especially those concerning height, are impossible for the city to meet. The two canyons being used are so full that reducing the height of the garbage would classify them as filled, making the landfill unusable, he said.

Chris Peck, board spokesman, acknowledged that vociferous opposition from neighbors of the east San Fernando Valley landfill, coupled with a March gas leak that caused two workers to faint, played roles in the board’s decision to issue the strict restrictions.

However, Peck said the city-operated dump would eventually have come under board scrutiny as part of a systematic statewide review of landfill permits.

In a letter released Monday, the waste board said the landfill has violated several provisions of its 1977 permit: exceeding its maximum height of 1,725 feet, allowing more than 400 trucks per day to dump there, dumping on more than 140 of its 392 acres and spilling garbage onto seven acres of U.S. Forest Service land.

The board has asked the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, which polices the dump locally, to force the city to cease those violations within 10 days.

However, Biagi said the city will argue Friday that the 1977 permit was updated with more liberal figures in a 1983 engineering report sent to the state.

“As far as we’re concerned, that’s part of our permit,” Biagi said.

Peck said the board has researched circumstances of the 1983 document and determined that it was requested after a rainstorm sent rivers of garbage into nearby Kagel Canyon. He said the city never asked that it become part of the permit.

News of the state’s action was greeted with surprise and elation by neighbors of the landfill, who have been working for several years to close the dump. When the city last year announced plans to double the landfill’s size and extend its life beyond the projected 1992 closure, that battle heated up. Opposition reached an even more urgent level after the workers fainted March 8.

“Thank God the board is jumping into the fray,” said Kagel Canyon resident Rob Zapple. “It’s all the things we’ve been saying for so long. They’re finally giving some credence to it.”

Zapple and some of his neighbors maintain that the increasing height of the landfill has robbed them of an hour of sunlight daily. They also complain that odors regularly waft from the dump, and they worry that it could be fouling ground water and streams in the area.

In the past, Charles Coffee, who inspects the dump as director of the county’s environmental management section, has been reluctant to crack down on the landfill because he believed that it was operating within the law.

On Tuesday, Coffee said he has asked the county counsel’s office to review the state’s latest list of restrictions to determine whether he is bound to enforce them. He said he agrees with the city that the 1983 document should stand.

“They are no worse than any other landfill operator,” Coffee said. “The things that we’ve found that were wrong up there were wrong with other landfills. They are things that are part and parcel of running a landfill.”

If Lopez Canyon is forced to close, the city has few options, Biagi said. The city now uses several private landfills, primarily Sunshine Canyon near Mission Hills, but those too are nearing capacity. Also, dumping garbage in private landfills is more costly.