Trash Dump Will Become a Living Lab for Scientists

For 31 years, a rumbling convoy of garbage trucks has brought load after load of waste to the 197-acre Spadra Landfill, piling trash into an imposing mountain in the rolling hills of the eastern San Gabriel Valley.

By the time the County Sanitation Districts close the landfill about the year 2000, more than 18 million tons of garbage will have been heaped into three 300-foot peaks.

The garbage has created a scarred wasteland of oozing fluids and methane gas. Impermeable clay liners have been buried to protect underlying water supplies and a web of pipes extract gas created by the decomposing garbage.

But what is an environmental nightmare to some has become a Mother Lode of opportunity for others.

Due to an agreement made three years ago among the sanitation districts, the county and Cal Poly Pomona, the landfill is slowly evolving into a living laboratory.

The agreement to turn the landfill into a full-time university research facility called LandLab is the only one of its kind in the nation.

‘Very Dramatic Things’

“We think we are going to be doing some very dramatic things,” said Hugh O. La Bounty, president of Cal Poly Pomona. “There probably isn’t another (school) president in the United States that is as excited about a dump as I am.”

Since the agreement was signed, researchers have studied the effect of the landfill on animal life, the use of different grasses to control erosion and the effect of burrowing animals on soil stability.

Cal Poly’s civil engineering department has also placed probes throughout the landfill, which is next to the university, to study how much settling occurs as the tons of trash decompose.

The cornerstone of the LandLab project is the development of a 16-acre, $5.5-million Institute for Regenerative Studies that will research ways of using the resources society has ignored or has grown used to discarding.

When the institute completes its work, sunlight will heat the buildings, treated waste water will be channeled to a series of fish pools and irrigated vegetable patches and windmills will power water pumps around the site.

Students and faculty are expected to pursue research in aquaculture, agriculture, landscape architecture, engineering and social science.

“It is an opportunity to allow our faculty to do research that didn’t exist before,” La Bounty said. “All disciplines will have something to gain from LandLab.”

Research projects have been going on at the landfill since the agreement was signed in October, 1985.

But Cal Poly is ready to begin the LandLab project. Last year the university completed a master plan for the site, and expects to receive a $2.7-million donation to help build the institute. Final negotiations with a prospective donor, not identified by the university, are under way. Officials said the rest of the money will be raised through private contributions and a bond issue.

The entire project will encompass 339 acres on the landfill and adjacent university land.

“We don’t see this as waste,” said Jeffrey K. Olson, professor of landscape architecture. “We see this as a resource.”

The partnership among the sanitation districts, the county and the university began in the mid-1960s when the landfill was running out of space for more garbage.

The university agreed to allow dumping on some of its property adjacent to the landfill. The sanitation districts’ part of the bargain was to fill the steep canyon with garbage and return it to the university as flatter land where crops could be raised.

It started as just a convenient trade, but both sides soon realized that the agreement opened far grander possibilities.

The Spadra Landfill, even with the added acreage, will have to be closed eventually, and the sanitation districts had to begin planning how the land should be managed after that. What contours should it follow? What trees should be planted?

At the same time, the university had its own problems. Founded as an agricultural college but hemmed in by suburban development, it had run out of land for research. It was also groping for ways to distinguish departments such as agriculture and environmental design from similar programs around the country.

The needs of all groups intertwined at the landfill.

The university was an ideal candidate to manage the site, and the landfill offered Cal Poly an abundance of land for research.

Under the agreement, the sanitation districts will eventually turn over the entire landfill to the university, and for the life of the pact it will provide funds for research and the development of the site. This year, the university received $205,000 for research and to begin implementing the master plan for LandLab, which will take decades to complete.

In return, the university will take over the management of the site and develop it as a research facility and recreation area.

“Everything has worked out extremely well,” said John Gulledge, assistant head of the sanitation districts’ department of solid waste management. “It’s a unique opportunity for the districts, the county and the university.”

Work has already begun to shape the area as called for by the master plan, which proposes a network of hiking trails, wildlife habitats and horse trails that will be open to the public.

The university has also proposed building a replica of a California Indian village to help students better understand early technologies and the relationship of land, plants and animals in the region.

Marvin J. Malecha, dean of the College of Environmental Design, said the potential of LandLab will blossom with the construction of the Institute of Regenerative Studies, which will house 90 students and faculty in a series of buildings covered with rooftop gardens.

Malecha said the institute intends to bring together disciplines such as engineering, architecture, biology and sociology to look at old and new ways of reusing the planet’s limited resources.

Methods of recycling water, maintaining the fertility of soils and using solar energy are just a few of the problems the institute will look at, Olson said. “It will be the leading facility in the world for regenerative studies.”

Construction of the institute is expected to begin in the next year and a half. Since the site will not be turned over to the university for years, the use of large areas for recreation or research must wait.