Closing the Lopez Canyon landfill : AGAINST : Mike Miller

Lopez Canyon Landfill, in a once-remote area of the northeast San Fernando Valley, has been criticized recently for odors, noise and its ever-expanding mass.

Residents sought to shut the dump three times in recent months by blocking its entrance. The city maintains that the landfill is safe and is essential for waste disposal. On March 8, an unexpected gas release hospitalized four workers. That incited a short-lived state order that the landfill be shut.

Mike Miller, 47, has been with the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation for 24 years and is now its assistant director. He holds a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Loyola University. He lives with his wife, Dennie, and three children, Erin, Dan and Ryan, in Northridge.

Q. How important is the Lopez Canyon Landfill in managing Los Angeles’ solid waste?

A. Lopez Canyon is our last operating landfill. That means that Lopez Canyon receives just about half of the 6,000 tons of household refuse that we pick up daily. The remainder is going to private disposal sites and to the county’s landfill. Another 1,000 tons a day goes into Lopez Canyon from street sweepings, recreation and parks, airports, the zoo.

If the landfill were shut down, there is a strong potential that we would not be picking up all the waste the citizens of Los Angeles put at their curb sides.

Q. The bureau wants to double the landfill’s size. The California Waste Management Board has concerns about its operation. There are numerous investigations. What’s going on?

A. Right now, Lopez Canyon is under the spotlight by both the community and the regulatory agencies. The community’s concerned, and I think rightly so. They don’t want to see Lopez Canyon lasting into the year 2000.

But our responsibility is to provide to the City Council a choice. We would be derelict in our duties if we did not try to obtain the most disposal capacity that we could.

We have a draft environmental impact report out which addresses the maximum utilization of what we call Canyon C. The community is obviously not in favor of having that developed to its maximum capacity. The decision will rest with the council. And we anticipate that coming about in July or August.

The state solid waste management board identified nine items they felt were in violation of our permit. One was that we did not have a sign. We had some more serious violations, but all of those have been corrected.

The landfill at Lopez Canyon is probably being run better than it’s ever been run before. We’ve expanded the staff up there since 1985 from a meager 20 to 25 people to over 70 people.

Q. Why wasn’t a gas recovery system installed earlier?

A. The requirement for a gas control system did not come into place until about three years ago. We’ve been through a long saga of events to get something installed up there. We have gone out to bid now on a $1-million facility for the gas flare station that will be installed in July.

One of the concerns the community has is odors. I certainly would not deny that the landfill has odors. We’re trying to control it as best we can until we can get a gas control system installed.

We’ve faced a problem of finding out about an odor complaint three or four days after it’s made. To eliminate that, we have two inspectors on-site full time just to be monitoring the potential landfill gas problems. We also now have a hot line between the South Coast Air Quality Management District and our personnel.

Q. AQMD data shows methane measurements exceeding 10,000 parts per million near the dump. Why?

A. I don’t want to challenge that statement because I don’t know exactly where that sample was taken. AQMD takes tests with probes in the ground. We are restricted by the AQMD as to the methane level. If we find an area exceeding 500 p.p.m., we have 24 hours to remedy that situation.

If you put a probe in the ground, it’s very possible you will measure 10,000 or 50,000 p.p.m. At the surface level, it should not be that high.

Q. What about other gases?

A. We’re concerned about other gases too. And we periodically take samples, and they are analyzed for chlorinated hydrocarbons and benzenes and all of the things that could potentially be in landfill gas. And those are all within acceptable levels. When we had this last incident, when two employees were injured, a whole battery of tests were run. And the results indicated there was nothing atypical of landfill gas.

Q. Can the March 8 incident, which was reported to have been a release of hydrogen sulfide gas, happen again?

A. Hydrogen sulfide is not commonly found in landfills. We do not expect it to be released that way again.

We have been conducting an extensive training program up there because we have to excavate some refuse to install the gas control system. In the event we do hit a pocket of hydrogen sulfide gas or whatever gas there may be, a whole series of safety precautions has been developed, including using self-contained breathing apparatus for those installing the lines.

Q. Can you ease the concern of folks in that neighborhood over the health risks?

A. It is the county health department’s responsibility to ensure that the health and safety of the public is maintained. They inspect us and monitor us. The AQMD also monitors our activity and monitors air within the community.

They have not found anything that is any threat to anybody. There is no health risk. I can understand the people’s concern. I’ve heard statements by people in the community that would scare the devil out of me if I knew nothing about what was going on.

I think it’s irresponsible to make statements like that.

Q. Assemblywoman Marian La Follette, the 38th District Republican, has said that, essentially, Los Angeles has no solid waste plan. How do you respond to that?

A. She’s absolutely right. Back in the early ‘70s, we had adequate landfill capacity, and there wasn’t much concern about the disposal of waste. But we realized we were potentially going to run out of capacity by the late 1970s or early 1980s, so we began looking for additional sites. We brought a couple of potential sites to the City Council for approval, and both times they were turned down.

The council directed us to start investigating waste-to-energy systems. We pursued that for almost seven years until we had the mayor terminate that project in June of 1986 because of environmental concerns raised by the community.

That basically turned solid waste management upside-down in this city. The only way we are going to be able to get rid of our waste is through an integrated solid waste management picture that includes recycling, waste reduction and landfills. We have to follow all of those with equal vigor.

On recycling, the city will be receiving a recommended recycling plan in the next couple weeks. We have teamed up with the county to possibly purchase the Towsley Canyon landfill out on Highway 5, and we’re also pursuing Elsmere Canyon, both of which are near Santa Clarita.

We also have a draft report looking at the potential of rail haul to take waste to the eastern California desert.

All of these sound good, but there’s a lot of problems associated with each one. They’re all going to be in somebody’s back yard. The issue of community reaction is always going to be there. We have to be able to overcome this.