State Orders Changes in Lopez Dump Operations

The California Solid Waste Management Board has directed the Los Angeles County Health Department to order the Lopez Canyon Landfill to discontinue, within 10 days, several “unlawful practices”, including piling garbage too high, a board spokesman said Monday.

It was the state board’s first acknowledgement that the Los Angeles city-run dump was operating illegally, as has long been claimed by some neighbors of the East San Fernando Valley facility.

“This is our first step in trying to resolve the problems we see at Lopez Canyon,” said board spokesman Chris Peck.

The illegal practices, which the city Bureau of Sanitation admitted at a waste board meeting held June 23 in Glendale, include dumping on U.S. Forest Service land and several violations of the dump’s 1977 permit: allowing the garbage mountain to exceed 1,725 feet, permitting too many truck trips per day and dumping on too much of the 392-acre landfill.

The city asked the state to adjust its permit to allow the practices.

Board members have become increasingly aware of the violations during the past few months, Peck said, particularly after the June hearing, at which a steady stream of landfill opponents voiced their complaints.

Garbage Removal Asked

In addition to halting the practices, Peck said the waste board wants the city to remove garbage that has been disposed of improperly.

Under state law, county health departments police landfills. Following that protocol, the board on Friday sent a letter concerning the violations at Lopez Canyon to Charles Coffee, director of the county’s environmental management section.

News of the board’s action was greeted with hope by neighbors of the dump and some of their elected representatives. Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who frequently has criticized the board for inactivity, said he hoped the action marks the beginning of stricter controls on the dump.

“The sense I get is that all the regulatory agencies gave the city a ton of slack and now they’re saying, ‘We can’t bend over backwards anymore,’ ” Katz said. “They saw how frustrated everyone was getting.”

The waste board will meet Friday to determine what changes it is willing to make in the landfill’s permit. Peck said Coffee is scheduled to attend the meeting to discuss how he will address the violations.

Neither representatives of the Bureau of Sanitation nor Coffee could be reached for comment late Monday.

Closure Order Refused

In March, Coffee refused to carry out a state order to close the dump after a toxic gas leak there caused two workers to faint. During an emergency meeting in Los Angeles the following day, the state agreed to let the landfill stay open until tests were completed. The tests found no more toxic gas leaks.

But Peck said that if Coffee refuses to comply with the latest mandate, the board may intervene directly and force the city to change its practices.

The waste board began reviewing the Lopez Canyon permit earlier this year as part of a routine analysis of landfill permits around the state.

The board’s inspectors found that the city was dumping on more than the 140 acres it was originally permitted to use; that up to 600 garbage trucks were dumping there daily instead of the 400 allowed; and that some mounds reached as high as 1,760 feet, 35 feet above the maximum height.

In addition, the landfill had spread onto seven acres of U.S. Forest Service land, which the city is trying to obtain.

Another difference between the permit stipulations and actual dump operations is the amount of garbage accepted daily. The permit calls for 8,000 tons a month, which the board and city agree was a typographical error and should have been 8,000 a week. Currently, though, up to 4,000 tons are dumped there daily, more than twice the latter figure.

Peck said the permissible volume of garbage will be decided at Friday’s meeting in Sacramento. The waste management staff is recommending that 3,100 tons a day be allowed, he said.

Odors in Neighborhood

Residents of Lake View Terrace, Kagel Canyon and Pacoima have complained for years that the landfill spews odors into their neighborhoods. They have blocked the landfill gates with sit-ins three times this year, twice preventing garbage trucks from entering and causing it to close early on the other occasion.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District is preparing to file a civil suit against the city for odor releases and for violations related to the March 8 incident in which two workers fainted.