L.A. Agrees to AQMD Demands to Reduce Lopez Canyon Emissions : Environment: But the city still faces civil fines for violating state air quality laws at the dump.

The city of Los Angeles has agreed to spend millions of dollars on measures demanded by regional air quality officials to reduce methane gas emissions from the Lopez Canyon dump in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, it was announced Thursday.

The city still faces civil fines for violating state air quality laws at the dump.

Elliott Sernel, an attorney for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said an agreement, hammered out over the last few days, is expected to bring the landfill into compliance with state laws governing methane gas emissions by the end of this year.

“Substantial conditions are being imposed on the city” that will solve both the gas emissions and odor problems at the dump, Sernel told members of the AQMD hearing board, which has been holding hearings on the dump’s emissions.

On Sept. 7, the district’s enforcement staff cited the city for violating air pollution laws 28 times from April through July, exposing the city to fines of up to $25,000 a day, a possible total of $700,000.

The exact amount of the fine is still being negotiated and will be included in a separate civil agreement to be presented to the City Council on Tuesday, Sernel said.

However, he said, the amount of the fine is not expected to be high because the agreement announced Thursday already commits the city to spend “several million dollars” to install new gas collection wells and to seal cracks in the landfill.

Sernel and Assistant City Atty. Christopher M. Westhoff, representing the city Bureau of Sanitation, asked the five-member hearing board to approve the agreement today after hearing public comment on the document.

Both attorneys asked the board to discontinue hearings it is conducting into noxious gas emissions and other problems at the landfill--a proposal that met with immediate opposition from hearing board members, elected officials and the public.

“I’m skeptical that what we’re going to see is going to be an acceptable document,” said board member Mark Abramowitz. He said he opposes ending the hearings.

“I don’t want this document to stop these proceedings before the full story is told,” said Kagel Canyon resident Rob Zapple, who has led the fight by neighborhood activists to close the dump. The AQMD enforcement staff has not testified as yet, he said.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who in April called for the hearing board to close the landfill until it complied with state law, accused AQMD and city attorneys of trying to rush an “insulting and outrageous” agreement through the hearing board.

“What’s the rush to go to the City Council on Tuesday?” he asked, accusing the enforcement staff of “ignoring their own hearing board.”

Both Katz and Zapple argued that the proposal allows inadequate time for public input. “Why not wait a week?” Katz asked. “If the deal is in the public interest, then it will stand up to public scrutiny.”

“A lot of work has gone into this document,” Westhoff said. “I think it does address all the concerns brought out in these hearings.”

Carol Coy, AQMD assistant director of enforcement, said the agreement calls for “extensive and detailed surface monitoring” of the landfill and details what steps the city must take to expand the gas collection system.

The district will maintain “a tight grip on enforcement” on a continuing basis, she said.

At issue is the escape into the atmosphere of methane and other gases given off by garbage rotting underground. By state and district law, the city must control the emissions by channeling the gas into underground collection pipes to the surface, where it is burned.