Crowded Landfills Have Trash Haulers Down in the Dumps

The gate at the Puente Hills landfill, just off the Pomona Freeway, opens shortly before 6 every morning to admit a steady, seemingly endless parade of trash trucks, dump trucks, long-beds, tractor-trailers and pickups, all laden with refuse.

It is a noisy procession of ugly, utilitarian vehicles, enlivened by an oddity here and there. One big refuse truck carries the slogan: “Drugs are Garbage.” A tree service truck sputters forward, so overloaded with branches and greenery that it seems to be lurching toward a mechanical breakdown. A pickup truck, dwarfed by the huge trucks alongside, moves forward with a light load: a broken stool, old garden hoses and a batch of odds and ends that probably sat for years in someone’s garage.

The air carries an odor that is not overwhelming, but a constant reminder that this is the largest dump in Los Angeles County.

Puente Hills is also, Sanitation District officials say, the second busiest landfill in the nation, trailing only a dump on Staten Island, N.Y., in trash volume.

It is one of four large landfills in the San Gabriel Valley, any or all of which may soon become even busier if the city of Los Angeles is forced to close its landfill at Lopez Canyon.

The city and state Waste Management Board are disputing how much trash can be deposited at that landfill, which now handles about 4,000 tons of trash a day. City officials say they could be forced to shut down the landfill within a year.

Even without the addition of Lopez Canyon trash, dumps in the San Gabriel Valley handle 26,000 tons of trash every day, more than half of the trash dumped in Los Angeles County. Landfills now reduce their hours to stay within their daily disposal limits. And as dumps continue to fill and close early, trucks must travel farther, meaning more air pollution and higher trash collection costs.

At Puente Hills, the lines of trucks are so long that it often takes them half an hour to travel up the hill from the main gate to the weigh station, even at four or five abreast. There, weighmasters at computer terminals calculate the size of the cargo and collect the fees in cash or on a credit card before directing the trucks farther up the hill to unloading areas.

Jim Grigorian, who runs a seven-truck disposal company in El Monte, says it is getting a lot more expensive to run a trash business these days, with insurance, fuel and vehicle costs all rising and dumps boosting their fees. Twelve years ago, he said, he could unload a ton of trash for 75 cents; now he pays $11.60 at Puente Hills, even more at other dumps.

‘Nobody’s Happy’

Sarkis Avisyan, who drives a truck for a Gardena rubbish hauler, said: “Nobody’s happy.” Just three years ago, he said, he could haul eight loads of trash to Puente Hills in one day. Now, he said, because there are so many trash trucks crowding into a dwindling number of landfills, “I’m only making three or four trips a day.”

Each trip takes longer because of the waits in line, and unless he gets to Puente Hills before noon, he is in danger of being turned away because the landfill will have reached its daily disposal limit.

Avisyan said his boss used to handle his trash business with two trucks and two drivers; now he needs four trucks and four drivers to get the same volume of trash to the dump.

Steve Maguin, who oversees Puente Hills and other landfills run by the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, said trash haulers are using more trucks and sending them farther because of the shortage of landfill space. Maguin said early daily closure of the Puente Hills landfill is becoming “more and more routine.”

One typical day last week, for example, 1,748 trucks passed through the gates, depositing 13,200 tons of trash by 1:50 p.m. At that point, workers ran a blue flag up a pole near the weigh station to warn truck drivers approaching on the Pomona Freeway not to bother to turn off because the landfill was closed for the day.

When Puente Hills is closed, most trash trucks head for the Sanitation Districts’ Spadra landfill in Pomona or the privately owned BKK landfill in West Covina.

Maguin said the Spadra landfill, which is permitted to receive 18,000 tons of trash a week, is beginning to fill up early too, partly because of the overflow from Puente Hills and partly because of the growth in the East San Gabriel Valley area. It is scheduled to close at 5 p.m., but has been shutting down at 3 or 4 in recent weeks.

The prime beneficiary of the landfill shortage has been the West Covina landfill owned by the BKK Corp.

Six years ago, when its landfill was the only hazardous waste dump open in Southern California, the BKK Corp. was said to own a money machine, grossing $23 million a year for taking in waste that no one else could handle.

But the revenue dropped abruptly in 1984, when state and federal regulators discovered that the bottom of the landfill was not impervious to leaks. Under pressure from the public and regulators, BKK Corp. closed its landfill to hazardous waste. Reduced to competing with other dumps for ordinary household trash, BKK Corp. saw its landfill revenue plummet to under $7 million a year.

“It was disastrous,” said corporate counsel Ronald Gastelum.

Revenue Up Again

But now, with landfill space for ordinary household trash becoming increasingly scarce, the BKK landfill is becoming a huge revenue-producer again.

The city of West Covina, which levies a 10% tax on landfill revenue, estimates that the BKK landfill will gross $25 million to $30 million this year. And the total could be much higher. The BKK Corp. reported to the city that it took in $2.9 million in April, the last month for which figures are available. That is a yearly rate of $34 million.

Gastelum said the landfill is receiving 9,500 to 10,000 tons of trash a day, ranking it just behind Puente Hills in trash volume countywide.

“Basically, we’re the safety valve for Puente Hills,” Gastelum said.

He acknowledged that most garbage haulers would rather unload at Puente Hills, or the Spadra landfill in Pomona because their disposal rates are cheaper.

The Sanitation Districts charge haulers $11.60 a ton to unload trash at Puente Hills or Spadra. BKK’s basic charge is $17 a ton, plus the city tax.

Rates at the privately owned Azusa Land Reclamation Co. landfill in Azusa are even higher--$18.75 a ton. It is operating at capacity, 1,500 tons a day.

Restricted Landfill

The Sanitation Districts also run the Scholl Canyon landfill, which is owned by the city of Glendale and accepts trash only from Glendale, Pasadena, South Pasadena, La Canada Flintridge, San Marino and Sierra Madre. It takes about 2,500 tons of trash a day at $16.60 a ton.

Maguin said the county Sanitation Districts have prohibited Los Angeles from dumping trash at the Puente Hills and Spadra landfills, and Scholl Canyon cannot take Los Angeles trash because L.A. is outside the boundary lines established by the city of Glendale. Officials at Azusa Land Reclamation Co. said they do not have room to take any trash from Los Angeles.

But the BKK landfill already takes some trash from Los Angeles. Gastelum said BKK could not handle all of the Los Angeles trash that now goes to Lopez Canyon but would “be willing to help out on a temporary basis,” taking some of that volume for six months or so while the city searches for other alternatives. In return, he said, BKK Corp. would like a chance to participate in the recycling program that the city is developing.

Traffic Problems

West Covina City Manager Herman R. (Bob) Fast said more trash from Los Angeles might create traffic problems near the dump. If it does, he said, the city would ask BKK Corp. to regulate the hours of disposal to ease congestion.

But, he said, the city has been advised by its attorney that it has no legal right to restrict the source of the trash BKK takes.

Fast said that if BKK increases its trash volume, one benefit might be to advance the dump’s closure date by a few months by filling the disposal area early. BKK Corp. has an agreement with the city to close its West Covina landfill in 1995 or earlier.

New Dump Near Newhall

The company is attempting to establish a new dump at Elsmere Canyon near Newhall.

The Elsmere Canyon landfill is one of a number of proposals to provide new dump capacity in Los Angeles County. There are also proposals to haul trash by rail to remote disposal sites, outside the county.

But, Maguin said, none of the alternatives is likely to occur soon, and the landfill shortage may worsen.

With landfills already closing early, trash trucks spending more time on the road and trash rates going up, Maguin said, “I don’t know what more has to happen” to arouse public concern.

But, he said, “if Lopez Canyon were to close, that really forces the issue.” The whole trash collection system, he said, “is so finely balanced that we have no slack.”