Lopez Dump Emissions Plan Called Inadequate : Landfill: A tour of Lopez Canyon revealed concentrated pockets of methane gas. The city is asking that limits on emissions be relaxed.

City of Los Angeles and local air pollution officials have quietly agreed that a plan approved in 1988 to limit methane gas emissions from the Lopez Canyon dump in Lake View Terrace is inadequate, and more costly steps need to be taken, records showed Monday.

The city, meanwhile, is asking that limits on methane emissions be relaxed until it is capable of meeting the standards.

The need to revise the gas control plan was revealed in documents the city filed March 21 asking the South Coast Air Quality Management District to suspend enforcement of its rules regulating methane emissions at the city-owned Lopez Canyon landfill, where 4,000 tons of garbage are dumped daily.

Attached to the exemption application was a warning issued to the city March 1 by an air district inspector. The inspector said that a three-hour tour of Lopez Canyon revealed concentrated pockets of methane--the flammable, explosive and often smelly gas produced by rotting garbage and other biological processes.

The inspector said he found “many” areas where methane readings exceeded 10,000 parts per million, 20 times the air district’s limit of 500. City equipment for measuring the gas also was found to be faulty, registering emissions “significantly” below the real amounts, the inspector’s report related.

In light of such continuing problems, the city soon will seek the air district’s permission to drill up to 200 more gas collection wells at the landfill, according to the documents filed with the air district.

Mal Toy, a top official with the city’s Bureau of Sanitation, said recently the city will install as many wells as it takes to control the problem. The wells pipe the gas from underground, where it forms, to the surface, where it can be burned.

The city’s current plan for limiting methane gas problems at the dump--approved by the air district in February, 1988--calls for only 43 wells. Thirty of the 43 wells have been installed, using six miles of pipe.

“We’ve informed the city that more wells need to be installed in the canyon,” said Moshen Nazemi, an air district supervising engineer who deals with landfill-related air pollution problems. “Nobody knows exactly how many more are needed. It’s not a simple plug-in-the-numbers type of thing.”

Also, the air district believes the city must dig gas collection wells deeper into the canyon’s 1,700-foot deep mound of garbage, Nazemi said. This might require the city to hire private contractors because city crews are not equipped to dig deep wells, Nazemi said.

Installing the additional wells could cost from $200,000 to $1 million, the city documents estimate.

In the meantime, the city Bureau of Sanitation is also asking the air district to stop enforcing its 500 p.p.m. rule at the landfill, saying that it is unable to comply. The air district will consider the city’s application April 17, said Dave Rutherford, a spokesman for the agency.

The city is seeking to increase the garbage it dumps at its 392-acre Lopez Canyon landfill from 400 to 650 truckloads per day.

Kagel Canyon and Lake View Terrace resident groups, backed by Councilman Ernani Bernardi, the area’s representative, are fighting the expansion project.