Judge Blocks Cutbacks at Lopez Canyon : Opponents Vow to Fight Further Landfill Dumping

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge Tuesday barred state officials from scaling back trash dumping at the city’s Lopez Canyon Landfill, prompting the state to vow to appeal and neighborhood opponents to promise to escalate their battle.

Judge Dzintra I. Janavs ruled that the 1978 permit state officials used to try to restrict dumping in the landfill--destination for two-thirds of the city of Los Angeles’ residential waste--is out of date and vague.

City officials maintained that had the judge enforced the 1978 limits, the city would have to close the landfill within days, at least temporarily, exacerbating Los Angeles’ mounting trash disposal problem.

“It’s good news for the people of Los Angeles,” said Deputy City Atty. Christopher M. Westhoff, who filed a lawsuit for the city against the state. “Now they know they have a place to put their trash.”

Agency Attorneys Concede Loss

Attorneys for the California Waste Management Board, the state agency that issued an order in July reducing trash dumping in accordance with the 1978 permit, conceded Tuesday that they had lost this court fight.

However, they said they would appeal and called Janavs’ ruling “dead wrong.”

“She just sent a message to the whole state of California that landfill operators can operate any way they want,” said attorney Robert F. Conheim. “If they happen to get away with it . . . and if enough time passes, then they’re home free.”

The judge’s ruling caps months of wrangling between the city and state over whether the landfill should continue accepting trash at current levels, which have alarmed neighbors.

Activists who live near the northeast San Fernando Valley landfill threatened to resume displays of civil disobedience, including protesters massing at the dump’s gate, blocking trucks from entering.

They also said they hope to file a lawsuit against the city that would cite continuing complaints about odors, noise and litter emanating from the dump.

‘Smell It Every Night’

“We live with it every single day. We smell it every night. We cannot forget about it,” said Lewis Snow, vice president of the Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn.

Encouraged by Tuesday’s victory, Westhoff said the city plans to apply for state permission to allow even more trash to be dumped at Lopez Canyon, although he said he does not know how large an increase will be requested. Any such increase ultimately must be approved by the state waste board. Lawyers for both sides said they are unsure if that would lead to a renewal of the battle.

In reaching her decision, Janavs said she had to put aside issues of possible air and noise pollution at the dump. Instead, she said she reviewed the 1978 permit, which she said “is vague, is ambiguous and is somewhat inconsistent,” primarily because it talks about estimates instead of setting precise limits.

The 1978 permit set the dump’s top elevation at about 1,725 feet--instead of the 1,770-foot level recently reached--limited truck traffic to about 400 trucks per day and restricted dumping to 140 acres of the 392-acre site. The city said imposing the height restrictions would have caused the landfill to close within days until another canyon area could be prepared to accept the 4,000 tons of trash dumped there daily.

Janavs agreed with the city’s contention that a more liberal 1983 engineering report prepared by the city should either have been considered an update of the earlier permit or should have triggered a review by the state six years ago, when it was submitted.

The engineering report was requested by the state after torrential rains caused a hill of trash to slide onto streets and into back yards in nearby Kagel Canyon in 1982.

Deputy Atty. Gen. David A. Eissler, who represented the state in court Tuesday, said the state never intended that report to substitute for a formal review of the permit’s conditions. He said the waste board did not realize until several years later that Los Angeles was overdue for its five-year permit review, which should have taken place in 1983.

But Janavs said that even when faced with revised numbers included in the 1983 report--a 1,740-foot elevation and 500 trucks per day--the state “didn’t come in and say, ‘Hey, you’re violating the 1978 permit, you cannot do that.’ ”

For the present, Westhoff said, the city will operate under a combination of limits set in the 1983 engineering report and those outlined in an order issued this summer by the county, which acts as the state’s local policing body for the landfill. He said the city had reduced daily truck traffic from 500 to 400 trips, but would continue to dump 45 feet or more above the 1,725-foot elevation the state was trying to enforce.

The waste board began reviewing operations at Lopez Canyon earlier this year and stepped up its investigation after two landfill workers were overcome there in March by toxic gas generated by decaying waste. Simultaneously, the South Coast Air Quality Management District began looking into odor complaints raised by neighbors, resulting in an order to the city to speed up completion of a system to extract and burn the landfill gas.

City sanitation and public works officials maintain that the waste board used Lopez Canyon to flex its muscle after state legislators and the Little Hoover Commission criticized it as impotent. Waste board members have repeatedly denied politics played a role in their actions.