Will Crack Down on Lopez Landfill, State Officials Say

The California Waste Management Board said Wednesday it will issue its own order restricting trash dumping at city-owned Lopez Canyon Landfill after Los Angeles County officials have staunchly resisted imposing the limits for fear they would close the dump.

The board told county officials it plans to issue the order by the end of the day Friday. The two agencies reached an impasse last week when the county defied a state request to order Los Angeles to reduce trash dumping at the landfill to levels allowed in a 1978 permit.

Instead, the county issued an order that allowed the city to rely on a less stringent 1983 engineering report that permits a greater landfill height, a wider dumping area and a larger number of trucks dumping there daily.

“The county did not issue an order that we thought did the job,” said Herbert Iwahiro, the board’s chief deputy executive officer.

City sanitation officials have said the state’s limits would force the dump to close within a year. At a time when the Los Angeles area is experiencing an acute shortage of landfill space, county health officials balked at the state waste board’s request, saying they saw no need to close Lopez Canyon.

City and county officials could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

Court Action Pending

A strong possibility remains that the dispute will be resolved in court. The city is challenging the state’s position in Los Angeles Superior Court, saying the dump should be allowed to abide by the 1983 report instead of the 1978 permit.

Dump opponents hailed the state’s action.

“This is what the state had told the county it would do,” said Lew Snow, first vice president of the Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn. “If the county doesn’t take a leadership role, the state is going to step in with a 2-by-4 and do the job itself.”

In a letter Wednesday to Charles Coffee, who oversees the dump as director of the county’s Solid Waste Management Program, Iwahiro wrote that the state waste board prefers to “encourage local enforcement agencies to take enforcement actions before taking action itself. . . .” He said the state board will take action because the county’s order is not sufficient.

On Tuesday, opposition from fellow county supervisors prompted Supervisor Mike Antonovich to postpone a vote on his proposal to order the city to limit dumping at Lopez Canyon.

Iwahiro said he was unaware of Antonovich’s failed effort. But he said the county still has two days to satisfy the state board, which could consider backing off from its planned order to the city.

After the county issued its disputed order July 21, the state board asked the county to change it to conform to the terms of the 1978 permit. But the county flatly refused, saying a more restrictive order would “force the closure of the landfill, at least for a short time.”

The 1978 permit calls for limiting the landfill’s height to 1,725 feet, although it would not require any reduction of the dump in areas exceeding that height. The permit also restricts dumping to a 140-acre area of the 392-acre landfill and allows only 400 trucks to dump their loads daily.

City officials have allowed entry to as many as 600 trucks a day and permitted dumping outside of the 140-acre area, noting that the 1983 engineering report calls for a height limit of more than 1,740 feet.

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