L.A. and Others Involved in Huge Land Swap Talks

A complex land swap that could help meet Los Angeles’ pressing needs for a new landfill and more electrical power, transform dilapidated Hansen Dam into a major recreation area and preserve scenic canyons in the Santa Monica Mountains is under serious negotiation by federal, city, county and private interests.

The outlines of the sweeping plan were contained in a bill introduced in Congress by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) in February. For months, Berman and city and county officials have quietly been trying to hammer out the details of a broader agreement.

“We are in sensitive negotiations that could easily be finalized within the next few weeks,” said Deputy Mayor Mike Gage, one of the city’s negotiators. “This is a very, very complicated process.”

Under consideration is a proposal that would:

* Provide a new 200-million ton landfill in Elsmere Canyon, west of Santa Clarita, for Los Angeles city and county.

* Acquire 5,900 acres of land in Nevada for the city of Los Angeles, allowing the city to obtain up to 30% of its future electricity from a coal-burning power plant in that state.

* Obtain $300 million in the course of several decades to restore a lake and create athletic and park facilities at Hansen Dam in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

* Transfer ownership of Mission, Rustic and Sullivan canyons, between the San Diego Freeway and Topanga Canyon Boulevard in the Santa Monica Mountains, from Los Angeles County and the county Sanitation Districts to a state or federal park agency.

* Close the city-operated Lopez Canyon Landfill in the East San Fernando Valley. Lopez Canyon and Hansen Dam are in Berman’s 26th Congressional District.

Even if Berman can craft a bill that gains the support of the city and county, various government agencies would subsequently have to approve many aspects of the agreement. The state Waste Management Board, for instance, would have to issue a permit for the Elsmere Canyon landfill, and the city and county would have to reach agreement on how to run it.

Moreover, an additional complication has been raised by Santa Monica real estate developer Ray A. Watt, one of Southern California’s largest and most politically influential builders, who has put forward a competing proposal.

Watt, who owns and has options on several strategically located parcels in Los Angeles County and Wyoming, has offered to help facilitate the deal. In exchange, he wants city approval to build 750 luxury homes off Mulholland Drive near Mission Canyon, west of the San Diego Freeway, and an unspecified percentage of the dumping fees the city and county governments would charge at Elsmere Canyon.

To advance Watt’s proposal, U.S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) plans to introduce a bill in the next few weeks that would swap rights to land Watt owns near Jackson Hole, Wyo.--highly sought by the U.S. Forest Service--in return for Elsmere Canyon, which is owned by the Forest Service, a spokesman for Wallop said. The city and county would get the canyon for a dumping ground.

“Mr. Watt’s interests are at least part of the negotiations,” Gage said. “However, his initial proposal is totally unacceptable to the city.”

Berman said he had not been consulted about Wallop’s measure but the two bills probably could be amended to be compatible.

Nevertheless, he said he flatly opposes part of Watt’s plan. “Anything which involves commitments to build 750 houses in the Santa Monica Mountains is not going to bring all of us together,” Berman said. “I won’t have it.”

Efforts to reach a spokesman at Watt Industries were unsuccessful. The company posted $420 million in housing sales in 1988, the second-highest figure in Southern California.

The behind-the-scenes negotiations involve some of Los Angeles’ most powerful figures. Attorney Richard J. Riordan has been brought in by the county and Watt is represented by the influential Los Angeles law firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg, Tunney & Phillips.

Berman is scheduled to meet today in Washington with Riordan’s assistant, former Beverly Hills Mayor Robert K. Tanenbaum. Berman said that he had “no reason to believe” an agreement would be reached today, but he hoped to forge a final bill in the next two weeks.

Among the most controversial aspects of Berman’s proposal are the closure of Lopez Canyon Landfill and the acquisition of Mission, Sullivan and Rustic Canyons. Either the state or federal parks departments or the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy would obtain the 2,396 canyon acres.

“There’s no single thing that you could do that would preserve as much parkland as this bill,” said Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

But those canyons were purchased by Los Angeles County and the county Sanitation Districts in the 1950s and 1960s as future dumps and both entities are reluctant to give up the land, particularly since Los Angeles is fast running out of landfill space.

“Taxpayers’ money was used 30 years ago to acquire those,” said Mark Volmert, deputy to county Supervisor Peter F. Schabarum. “They are consistently listed in the very top . . . landfill sites in the county. As such, I don’t think the board is interested at all in giving those sites away.”

The city, which uses Lopez Canyon to dump more than half of the 6,000 tons of trash Los Angeles generates daily, is scheduled to shut down the landfill in 1992. But the city hopes instead to expand it and continue to use it through at least 2001.

In Santa Clarita, the proposed Elsmere Canyon landill already has prompted formation of an anti-dump citizens’ group. Mayor Jan Heidt said she personally is opposed to the landfill, but most of the City Council feels “this is a done deal and we might as well get what we can out of it.”

To sweeten the package for Santa Clarita, Berman’s proposal calls for transferring to the city of Santa Clarita a former detoxification center owned by the city of Los Angeles for possible use as a civic center and park.

In another series of land transactions, Berman is proposing that the U.S. Forest Service obtain 310 acres in Upper Franklin Canyon in the Santa Monicas from the city Department of Water and Power and nearly 1,000 acres elsewhere in Los Angeles County. This includes Big Tujunga, San Francisquito and Bouquet canyons.

In return for giving up the land, the DWP is counting on the bill to facilitate its quest for electrical power by setting aside corridors of Nevada property owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for power lines. The lines would carry electricity from a proposed coal-burning plant in White Pines, Nev., the kind of plant that environmental restrictions forbid in California.

Eldon Cotton, the department’s assistant general manager for power, said the plant could satisfy about a third of Los Angeles’ electrical power needs for the next several hundred years.

Berman also has long sought ways to revive the Hansen Dam Recreation Area, which has become a haven for the homeless after several large rainstorms filled its lake with silt.

Proposed Land Swaps 1.ELSMERE CANYON

Proposal: For 900 acres of U.S. Forest Service land to become a landfill for Los Angeles city and county.

2.LOPEZ CANYON

LANDFILL

Proposals: For the 392-acre city-owned landfill to close or for the U.S. Forest Service to gives the city 283 nearby acres for landfill buffer zone.

3.HANSEN DAM RECREATION AREA

Proposal: For 1,400 acres near the dam to be rehabilitated and developed with $300 million in dump fees from Elsmere Canyon landfill.

4. MISSION, RUSTIC and SULLIVAN CANYONS

Proposal: For 2,400 acres of land owned by Los Angeles County and the county Sanitation Districts to become parkland.

5. FRANKLIN CANYON

Proposal: For 300 acres owned by the city of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to become parkland.