Delays, Changes Nearly Double Improvement Costs at Lopez Canyon Landfill

Improvements at the Lopez Canyon Landfill have cost nearly twice as much as expected because of work delays and changes required by state and local regulatory agencies, Los Angeles city sanitation officials said Friday.

The City Council on Friday approved reimbursing the Bureau of Sanitation $1.12 million to help pay for cost overruns--most involving a system to tap gasses from decaying trash at the municipal dump above Lake View Terrace.

Original estimates called for the recent spate of landfill improvements to cost nearly $1.4 million, according to a report prepared for the council’s Budget and Finance Committee. Nearly $1.2 million more than that has been spent, sanitary engineer Malcolm Toy said, and it will cost an additional $200,000 to install 40 additional gas extraction wells recently required by the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Even Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who has been the dump’s harshest council critic, said the additional money is merited.

“This is all to tidy up the operation and make it cleaner and safer,” Bernardi said.

It paid for things such as additional landscaping near the flare station, where landfill gasses are burned off; additional wells to tap the gas, and a rerouted road to allow the city to begin dumping in a new area, Toy said.

Reacting to criticism from residents who live near the landfill, Toy said none of the improvements made so far involve preparations for a proposed expansion.

“That’s always the first question asked when this comes before the council,” he said. “We know we can’t proceed on anything involving the expansion until we have a council OK.”

The sanitation bureau has proposed doubling the landfill’s capacity and keeping it open at least a decade past its projected 1992 closure date. The proposal, still undergoing environmental review, has prompted protests by nearby residents, who want to see the dump closed.

Of the money approved Friday, Toy said, some will reimburse the department for $239,000 spent to plant landscaping to help camouflage the flare station, as required by the city Planning Commission.

Construction delays began when the original contractor left the project in September, 1988, Toy said, just a few months before the system was supposed to be completed. Those delays caused the AQMD to issue an abatement order to the city last summer, which called for a strict construction schedule.

The state Solid Waste Management Board took the city to court last summer to try to limit the height of trash mounds at the landfill to levels listed in a 1978 permit. Although the state lost that lawsuit, the city agreed to begin dumping in an unused area of the landfill.