Closing the Lopez Canyon landfill : FOR : Rob Zapple

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.

Rob Zapple, 36, is a carpenter and actor who has lived in Kagel Canyon, which abuts the so-called B face of the landfill, since 1982. He lives there with his wife, Michele, their daughter, Zoe, 18 months, and their son, Holden, 5. Although he says he is a reluctant activist, he has been one of the most outspoken critics of the landfill’s operation.

Q. The Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation has operated the Lopez Canyon Landfill since 1975. Why are residents upset about it now?

A. The original permit called for 8,000 tons of trash per week. All of a sudden, in the past 24 months, this literal monster has just started to climb out of this canyon next to us. It’s to the point now where it blocks our sun in the late afternoon. They tell us now that they are dumping at a rate of 5,700 tons per day.

There are 9 million tons of trash up there right now, and they want to almost double that. It was kind of like damn the torpedoes, let’s keep dumping the trash. I simply wanted to be left alone to live a nice, peaceful life. But it became apparent that there was nobody looking out for what was going on over there.

Q. What happens to the 7,000 tons of trash that Los Angeles generates each day if the dump is closed?

A. What should happen with the trash is like a whole other issue. It’s often a smoke screen that is thrown up to obfuscate the problems here. It’s a huge debate. The issue for me is this specific landfill.

Q. But this specific landfill is part of the larger issue of solid waste management. What happens to the trash?

A. The Bureau of Sanitation has a budget of $100 million a year. They’ve known about this problem for 15 or 20 years. Here we are in 1989, the fifth- or sixth-largest city in the world, and they’re telling us that the linchpin of their entire waste management plan is a faulty landfill? One that is so mismanaged that it doesn’t even have a gas recovery system? It doesn’t even have the basic technology installed?

Something’s wrong with this picture! We should be leading the world in this field, as we do in so many areas. Instead, we’re worse than a Third World country in dealing with this problem.

The Bureau of Sanitation tries to create panic in the public by saying that if we close Lopez, we’ll have rotting trash in the streets. That is simply not true. There are four other landfills in the area that could handle Lopez’s load.

Q. What are your complaints about the landfill?

A. The operating hours of the dump are supposed to be 7 a.m. to 4:10 p.m. People start hearing the trucks here at 6 a.m., and on the other side of the dump, it’s earlier.

Any day there is a moderate breeze, there’s dust. A violation of the state regulations. Vector and bird control. The swarms of birds that feed off the trash are uncontrolled. There are no subterranean drains to control the leaching of poisons into the San Fernando aquifer.

Odor. The odors coming off the landfill have been increasingly intense. In Kagel Canyon, Lake View Terrace, even down as far as Pacoima, you can smell the dump. Methane is an odorless gas. What we are really smelling is organics. But every time you smell that, methane is included.

Litter control. There is trash of all kinds throughout the entire community. Traffic. The state inspectors have found puddles of oil and fuel where they drain their crankcases. A review of their operating permit is required every five years. It hasn’t been done since 1978.

They’ve trespassed and filled seven acres of U.S. Forest Service land on the north side. They’ve also tried to take over 10 acres of private land to the south. They don’t even know where their boundaries are.

Q. What is the basis for your complaints about excess methane?

A. In June of 1986, they had an inspector come by from the South Coast Air Quality Management District with a meter that measures methane and goes from zero to 10,000 parts per million. A violation occurs when the meter registers over 500 p.p.m. His meter peaked out at 10,000 p.p.m.

The AQMD issued a violation at that time and said methane was a serious problem. But the Bureau of Sanitation has done nothing. For three years, they have been operating with an increasing amount of methane coming out of that landfill. They are still in the bidding process for a gas recovery system that has been promised to be installed in July.

Q. The AQMD and the Bureau of Sanitation have instituted more extensive air-quality testing following a March 8 incident in which several workers were overcome by a release of an unknown gas. Are you satisfied with those measures?

A. Methane is the only thing they are testing for. What about the other gases that come off the landfill? What about hydrogen sulfide? Vinyl chloride? What about xylenes? They’ve said those gases are coming off, but they tell us they’ve never tested for specific amounts.

The crux of our complaint is the health hazard associated with this landfill and its mismanagement. Ten years down the line, it’s going to be too darn late for me and for my 18-month-old daughter. What if she starts popping up with liver problems or a buildup of this stuff from breathing it 24 hours a day? The dump is the largest air polluter in the San Fernando Valley. It is out of control.

Why don’t we end this silly debate? Close the landfill. Install your gas recovery system. Fire the thing up. If it works, great. We won’t be extremely happy. But we will be relieved to know that we are no longer being inundated with methane and other gases.

Q. Who is responsible for the failings you cite?

A. If you addressed this as you would in private industry, the first thing you would do is cut your losses. You review your policies. If you have people who cannot shift their viewpoint of that policy, you replace those people. Charles Coffee, head of the county Department of Health Services, which is the local enforcement agency, and Del Biagi, the head of the Bureau of Sanitation, have got to be held responsible for their policies of mismanagement. Then you replace them with people who have a little bit of vision, who understand the problem and can get the thing under control.