Dump Faces Closure if Tests Reveal Unsafe Toxic Fume Exposure

The California Waste Management Board will wait until early next week to decide whether to close Los Angeles’ only public trash dump, pending the results of tests to determine what caused two city sanitation workers to faint, a board spokesman said Friday.

After meeting with city, county and regional officials Friday, the state board withdrew an order issued Thursday to close Lopez Canyon Landfill immediately to protect workers and nearby residents from possible exposure to toxic fumes.

The landfill, in the northeast San Fernando Valley, is the depository for more than half of the 7,000 tons of household trash and garbage produced daily in Los Angeles.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who requested that the landfill be closed, said he was satisfied with the wait-and-see approach because no trash is accepted at Lopez Canyon over the weekend anyway.

“I just want some facts,” Katz said.

Dizziness, Headaches

On March 8, two city workers went home sick and several others complained of dizziness and headaches after they unearthed some 1982-vintage trash while excavating a road. One of the workers, Keith O’Kray, 33, of Newhall, is still undergoing tests at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. He is in stable condition.

Despite testing by the county Department of Health Services and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the fumes have not yet been identified. Speculation by county and AQMD officials is that the fumes may have been hydrogen sulfide gas, a toxic product of decaying matter such as manure.

Any removal decisions will depend “on what level it is, whether it’s dangerous and on whether a special effort to remove the material could be done safely, or whether it would be better to just leave it there,” said Charles Coffee, county director of solid waste management.

Los Angeles trash that does not go to Lopez Canyon goes to two private landfills and one run under a joint operating agreement with the county. But city Sanitation Director Delwin Biagi said the alternate dumps cannot accept all of the overflow if Lopez Canyon is closed.

Instead, Biagi said, if the state closes Lopez Canyon, even temporarily, service will be cut back for Los Angeles residents.

‘A Numbers Game’

“It’s a decision the mayor and the City Council would have to ultimately make, but it’s simply a numbers game,” Biagi said. “We would either not pick it up or we would pick up less. We can’t just all of a sudden send an extra 4,000 tons someplace.”

The average Los Angeles household sets out two to three cans of trash a week, not counting clippings, Biagi said. Some private landfills accept trash directly from consumers, but their minimum charges range from $15 to $25.

Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents the northeast Valley, said he had hoped that the state would proceed with plans to close the dump even before the testing is complete, just in case a health threat exists.

Chris Peck, spokesman for the California Waste Management Board, said the state withdrew its immediate closure order when it learned that results of air and ground gases testing by the AQMD would be available before Monday.

Also, during their three-hour meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, Peck said city and county officials persuaded board representatives that the March 8 incident was handled correctly.

“It appears that the city has done everything reasonable that could be expected,” Peck said. “But we need one more piece of positive evidence of that and the air testing results could be that piece.”

However, Peck said, the state will again push for closure if the tests show a continued presence of dangerous gases or fumes. Preliminary test results showed that air quality was up to legal standards. A staff recommendation to close would have to be approved by the waste management board, Peck said.

“Closure is still a possibility,” he said. “How much of a possibility, I don’t know.”

Order Defied

The county Department of Health Services--which acts as the state’s local agent for landfill review--refused to carry out the state’s closure order Thursday. Coffee said there was insufficient evidence of a threat to workers or the public to order the closure.

“So far, all of the evidence that we have indicates that it’s not a hazard, it was an isolated incident,” Coffee said Friday.

But Coffee said he would go along with a closure if the AQMD testing proves it is necessary.

Proposals to keep the dump open 13 years beyond a projected 1992 closure and to more than double its capacity have drawn the ire of nearby residents. Community members have blocked the entrance to the landfill three times, most recently on Wednesday when they stopped operations for four hours.

The March 8 incident occurred while the workers were preparing for the planned expansion by digging a road through the trash. The AQMD issued a violation against the landfill on Wednesday because the city did not have an AQMD permit, required for excavating trash. The maximum fine for that violation is $25,000 per day of violation.