Anti-Expansion Protest Forces Lopez Canyon Landfill to Close Again

A coalition of northeast San Fernando Valley community groups forced Lopez Canyon Landfill to close for an hour Thursday when members blocked the path of nearly 20 garbage trucks.

The 7 a.m. protest was the second in as many days of a Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation proposal to double the size of the Lake View Terrace landfill and extend its life through 2005.

Sanitation officials learned of the first protest and closed the dump an hour early Wednesday to avoid a confrontation.

Bolstered by Thursday’s success, the residents vowed to return unannounced and maybe even stay a whole day.

“Yesterday we took a bite, today we took a larger bite and tomorrow we can take an even larger one,” said Jules S. Bagneris III, president of the Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn. and a City Council candidate.

“All we are saying is close down the dump,” the protesters chanted as passing motorists cheered them.

Landfill manager John De La Rosa did not ask the protesters to leave, saying he would “just watch them.” However, garbage truck drivers, many of them just starting their morning rounds, were visibly irritated by the protest.

At least five full garbage trucks were stopped outside the gates by the blockade Thursday and another 13 empty trucks were trapped inside before city sanitation officials began diverting the trucks to private landfills.

“You can’t do this. I’ve got to get to work here,” shouted one driver.

“We have to put the trash somewhere,” said Craig Bierlin, another driver who was waiting out the protest inside the landfill’s gates.

Bureau of Sanitation officials echoed Bierlin’s reaction. They said they will run out of space at Lopez Canyon in six months to a year without the expansion. They added that private landfills cannot pick up the slack.

‘Becomes Our Problem’

“The problem with trash is that everybody loves us when they see us picking it up, but the moment it’s in our trucks, it becomes our problem,” said Delwin A. Biagi, city sanitation director. “By blocking the gate at Lopez Canyon, the people who live near there are just forcing us to take it to other landfills, near where other people live.”

Delays caused by public protests or by an extended period for written comments on the expansion’s environmental impact report only add urgency to the city’s garbage crisis, Biagi said. Councilman Ernani Bernardi has requested a 30-day extension to the 90-day comment period, scheduled to end Tuesday. Biagi said the extension probably will be granted.

Biagi said that once he learned of the protest, trucks were sent to private landfills: Sunshine Canyon in Sylmar, Bradley West in Sun Valley and Calabasas. Drivers trapped inside Thursday who had to start their routes late will be paid overtime for any extra hours, he said. He added that this will “end up costing the taxpayers of the city of Los Angeles money.”

Only one driver talked his way through the blockade, saying: “I live in the neighborhood. I’m with you. Now may I go pick up the trash?”

Fueling the residents’ opposition is their belief that the northeast Valley is shouldering more than its share of Los Angeles’ waste. Lopez Canyon is the city’s only public dump. It receives more than half of the almost 6,000 tons of household garbage discarded in the city every day.

Expansion plans call for spending $18 million to double that capacity and add sewage sludge to the substances that the landfill will accept. The dump was once scheduled to close in 1992, but under the new proposal, it could remain open 13 years longer.