Gas Fumes at Lopez Dump May Cost City $25,000 a Day

Regional air quality officials, saying Los Angeles’ attempt to control methane gas emissions from the Lopez Canyon Landfill is not working, ruled Friday that from now on fines of up to $25,000 a day can be levied on the city for violations of state air pollution laws.

The action by the South Coast Air Quality Management District came on the 20th day of hearings into noxious gas emissions at the northeast San Fernando Valley dump, the city’s only operating landfill. The hearings, which have been held periodically since April, began after residents who live near the dump and the residents’ elected officials asked the board to close the landfill until gas emissions are controlled.

Members of the hearing board said they had never intended an order they issued in August, 1989, to be interpreted as a variance--or permit--allowing the city Bureau of Sanitation to violate state law governing gas emissions while a gas control system was being constructed at the dump.

City sanitation officials had said they interpreted the order as a permit, protecting them from fines while they worked on improvements.

Board member James D. Joyce, however, said, “It is clear in my mind that the order I voted for was not intended to act as a variance.”

“I want to make the city liable for every day it violates the law” from now on, board member Martin Abramowitz said.

Whether to actually impose the fines will be up to the district’s enforcement staff.

At one point, Abramowitz suggested the fines be made retroactive to Aug. 2, 1989, when the board’s order was issued, but other board members would not agree.

City officials have admitted a system they installed to control and burn off methane gas is not working adequately, but have maintained that improvements are being made and the landfill is nearing “substantial compliance” with state law.

Hearing board members, however, cited the city’s own records in concluding that the system, built at a cost of almost $4 million, is not working. As recently as July, methane gas emissions were measured at 10,000 parts per million of air, 20 times the level permitted by the state.

“We don’t agree with the city that they are in substantial compliance” with state law, AQMD attorney Elliott R. Sernel said.

On Friday, the hearing board also extended for the second time--for 45 days--the order it issued last August to bring the gas-burning system into compliance. The board also ordered AQMD staff attorneys to draw up a more stringent set of regulations for the sanitation bureau to follow in bringing the landfill into state compliance.

Assistant City Atty. Christopher Westhoff, representing the Bureau of Sanitation, asked the board not to extend the order if it would not serve as a variance. He threatened court action if the AQMD tries to impose the fines and more stringent controls. “I’ll see you in court,” Westhoff said.

The extension also allowed the hearing board, a quasi-judicial body, to continue the hearing into alleged violations at the landfill. “I’m not in favor of going back to square one and starting these hearings all over again,” board member Esther Lewin said. “I want us to get on with what we have to do.”

Lewin said she wants any new order the hearing board might issue to deal with odors from the landfill, which have drawn complaints from many of the dump’s neighbors. She called the present order “totally inadequate.”

City officials testified the odors are under control, but Lewin said she does not believe Kagel Canyon and Lake View Terrace area residents who testified are imagining the landfill odors.

Neighbors of the landfill, who have been monitoring the hearings, said they are delighted by the hearing board’s action.

“The community now feels that the hearing board is giving it a fair shake,” Kagel Canyon resident Dennis Ghiatis said.

“They did exactly what we wanted,” said Rob Zapple, also of Kagel Canyon and an anti-landfill leader. “We wanted the hearings to go forward, and we did not want the variance in effect.”

Zapple said sanitation bureau officials could no longer contend they had received no citations from the AQMD in seeking permission from the Planning Commission to expand the landfill.

“They took away their shield,” landfill critic Anson Burlingame of Sunland said. The commission will act on the expansion request later this month. The AQMD hearings will continue Sept. 13.