Residents Use Meeting to Air Doubts on Plan for BKK Landfill

About three dozen residents, many of them veterans of the long fight against the BKK Corp. landfill, last week warned state health officials that plans for a renaissance at the once-toxic dump may backfire.

“There should be a lot more thought given to this,” George Tracy, chairman of the city’s Waste Management and Environmental Planning Commission, told state health officials, who on Wednesday met with local residents to discuss the future of the dump.

Six years have passed since the BKK Corp. last accepted hazardous wastes at the landfill, once Southern California’s primary spot to discard toxic chemicals, and BKK officials now have asked the state for what is known as a “post-closure permit.”

The meeting, held at the West Covina Senior Citizens Center, was an informal preview of the permit proceedings that are expected to occur throughout the year.

As required by the state Department of Health Services, which enforces state laws regarding the dump, the company already has filed a draft of its plans for maintaining the closed, toxic portion of the landfill for the next 30 years. A formal hearing on the permit will be held later this year.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Nancy E. Adin, who lives about a half-mile from the landfill and is a college chemistry teacher who often has questioned activities at the dump, gave an intense critique of BKK’s plans for improvements, which company officials say have cost $38 million. Some of her strongest comments involved landscaping on the 140-acre, clay-covered mound of hazardous trash that rises hundreds of feet above surrounding neighborhoods. “The vegetation and maintenance is a farce. I’m tired of looking at ugly slopes.”

Alan Sorsher, an associate waste management engineer in the Department of Health Services, addressed the criticism by telling the audience that BKK “was doing a pretty fair job, landscaping notwithstanding,” in complying with state and federal regulatory agencies.

BKK still operates a 443-acre municipal garbage dump at the site. But the 140-acre toxic chemicals section was officially closed last year and stopped accepting hazardous wastes in 1984.

The company plans to continue operating the landfill until 1995. Tentative proposals by BKK call for developing the land around the site as an industrial park. Also under consideration is a plan to build a subdivision of luxury homes on adjacent land in Walnut. The West Covina City Council, acting jointly as the city’s redevelopment agency, on Monday will resume its earlier discussions on whether the area around the landfill should become a business park.

Several residents who spoke at the hearing questioned such development plans, citing issues that relate to toxic chemicals, including the cancer-causing substance vinyl chloride. Royall Brown, a West Covina resident and a board member of the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, expressed his fears about the dangers the substance may pose.

Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board records show that high levels of vinyl chloride have moved underground, said Brown, who blames the landfill. “It raises real questions,” he said.

Sorsher said he hadn’t seen the specific records cited by Brown, but is familiar with the situation. However, Sorsher said he saw no immediate public health hazard from the vinyl chloride.

Researchers are still in the process of conducting health studies to see how the landfill might have influenced residents’ cancer rates, cancer risk and birth defects. Eleanor Blake, a community relations coordinator for the Department of Health Services, told those at the meeting that results of some of the studies may be released in September.