Feud Flares Over Plans for Quarry : Development: El Monte claims landfill proposal attempts to reclaim the site without adhering to state guidelines.

A plan to convert the Rodeffer Quarry on Lower Azusa Road into a non-hazardous landfill has rekindled a feud between Arcadia and El Monte over development of the site.

Last week, the Arcadia City Council approved a plan by Rodeffer for eventual reclamation of the site. Mining has stopped at the quarry, but company officials say they aren’t sure when they might begin filling and developing it.

For years the two cities have fought over Rodeffer’s proposal to turn the quarry, in a narrow strip of land along the San Gabriel River in the extreme southeastern corner of Arcadia, into a non-hazardous landfill. The quarry is in one of the most heavily polluted areas of a federal Superfund cleanup site because of ground-water contamination.

El Monte officials say the company’s plan doesn’t follow state guidelines for environmental review to make sure the pit is filled properly, and Arcadia didn’t properly scrutinize the plan.

Several El Monte residents whose homes face the 85-acre site said they are concerned about noise, pollution, traffic congestion and the potential for ground-water contamination.

Also, El Monte claimed that the plan failed to consider El Monte’s request to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Board to more carefully regulate landfills that have been designated Superfund sites.

Arcadia senior planner Donna L. Butler said Rodeffer’s proposal complies with state law because it is not an application for approval of a landfill but only acknowledges that the property “must be reclaimed to a usable condition for alternative land uses.”

Any future use of the property will require public hearings on an environmental impact report and a conditional-use permit, she said.

El Monte unsuccessfully tried to annex the land in 1978 and 1988, and has attempted to stop development at the site by refusing to allow a hookup with the El Monte sewer system.

The quarry plan was submitted under the 1975 California Surface Mining and Reclamation Act, which requires that mines file reclamation plans by this month or stop operating.

But El Monte officials view the plan as a first step in developing a landfill, and say it therefore should include a complete environmental impact report.

“The reclamation plan is not a paper-work requirement, it is a piggyback for a future landfill,” said Ted M. Handel, El Monte’s attorney. “Rodeffer and staff are straining to define the project as just a reclamation plan, with hollow assurances that there will be a further environmental review when the project is initiated. The project can’t be chopped up or segmented. You have to look at the whole action.”

Quarry owner E. O. Rodeffer told the council that his plans had not changed since he signed an agreement 35 years ago with Arcadia stipulating that he mine the quarry, convert it into a landfill and build an industrial park.

“The fill we’re talking about (will be) composed of bricks, concrete, dirt, and inert material, that do not contain anything to contaminate water or anything else” Rodeffer said. “It is the only way to return the ground that has been used for another purpose back to useful purposes.”

El Monte residents do not oppose filling the pit, but they want assurances that it is filled properly, Handel said.

“The issue in question is of assurances that residents in El Monte are receiving,” he said. “They are being told to accept that, in time, a proper environmental review will be done, proper permits will be obtained, and proper action will be taken. We need additional assurances. We want assurance that material put in the landfill is inert.”

Arcadia Councilman Robert C. Harbicht, who moved to approve the plan, told the audience that “most of what we’ve heard tonight is irrelevant.”

In approving the plan, the council required Rodeffer to deposit a $100,000 bond with the city within 30 days to ensure that the quarry is properly filled.

Los Angeles Times