AQMD Officials Threaten Tighter Controls at Dump : Lopez Canyon: City says if an earlier agreement approved by the council is replaced with stricter conditions, it may fight the issue in court.

Regional air quality officials say they are considering imposing even more stringent conditions on operations at Lopez Canyon Landfill than are contained in an agreement approved by the Los Angeles City Council last month.

City officials responded that if the agreement is replaced with much tougher conditions, the city will fight the issue in court.

The agreement was reached last month between the city and the South Coast Air Quality Management District legal staff. It requires the city to reduce noxious gas emissions and odors at the city-owned dump in the northeastern San Fernando Valley by Dec. 15 and to pay a $5,000 fine for each violation of district air-pollution regulations after Jan. 31.

The AQMD legal staff recommended that the district’s hearing board--a quasi-judicial body that has been conducting hearings on problems at the dump since April--approve the same agreement.

But both AQMD and city officials said Friday that hearing board members want “to put their own stamp” on the document.

One board member has asked the city to admit in the agreement that odors from the dump caused three children who live in nearby Kagel Canyon to become ill. Another said he wants more frequent monitoring of gas emissions, a byproduct of decomposing trash.

Other proposals included limiting the amount and kind of trash that can be dumped in the landfill and requiring the city to permanently shut down portions of the dump already filled to their permitted capacity.

But board members, who will continue reviewing the 25-page agreement Dec. 11, have stopped short of ordering the dump closed, as members of the public had asked in the hearings.

“If they put in some condition like shutting down the landfill, we’ll take them to court,” said J. Malcolm Toy, the city Bureau of Sanitation’s chief sanitary engineer in charge of Lopez Canyon operations.

Even less drastic new demands by the AQMD board could result in court action, said Assistant City Atty. Christopher M. Westhoff, who represents the sanitation bureau.

“We will agree to reasonable changes,” he said, but requiring more frequent monitoring of gas emissions on the landfill is “unacceptable” because the city would have to hire more staff.

Westhoff called the agreement approved by the council “the best engineering efforts” of both the district and the city.

Hearing board member Mark Abramowitz said at a daylong hearing Wednesday that he believes “it is appropriate to put in here . . . that the board finds that odors from the landfill resulted in children in the community becoming ill.”

“If you want to go to court over that, then be my guest,” Westhoff said.

Abramowitz also suggested that the city not be allowed to dump in any new areas on the landfill until it reaches compliance with all air-pollution laws, which the city now is unable to do.

AQMD attorney Elliot Sernel said the district legal staff could not agree to any conditions it considers to be beyond the board’s authority. For example, he said, the board has no jurisdiction over final closure of the landfill, even of portions already filled with garbage.

“I would hope they would approve this agreement with some additional requirements of their own--not major ones,” Sernel said. “I can see that they want to put their own stamp on it.”

Westhoff said he also hopes the board and city can “come up with an agreement” to satisfy all parties.

But neighbors still are urging that more stringent conditions be placed on the dump. Their complaints resulted in the city being cited for violations of excess odors earlier this week.

“The dump smelled so bad it made me throw up,” said Michelle Zapple, whose husband, Rob, has been a leader in the fight against the dump. “I put my kids in the car and left the canyon. I was afraid.”

Toy said the odors were caused by contractors--who were drilling gas collection wells--not abiding by rules agreed to by city and AQMD engineers.

Kagel Canyon resident Dennis Ghiatis said that in October the city’s own monitoring records show that it was violating gas emissions laws in 148 separate sites at the dump.

“Their gas collection system still is not working,” he said.

In a related development, Communities United for Safe Trash Management, a coalition of three homeowner groups, has appealed to a City Council Committee a decision by the city Planning Commission to allow expansion of the landfill.

Lewis Snow, president of the Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn., said he fears the dump might be allowed to expand even more in the future if the city can find no place else to dump its trash. Among other things, Snow said, the appeal asks that the amount of excavation for the expansion be limited.

“My greatest fear is that they’ll excavate this hole the size of Cleveland, Ohio, and they’ll come back and ask for another expansion,” Snow said. “We don’t want any big gaping hole that cries out for fill.”

Other parties to the appeal are the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn. and the Kagel Canyon Civic Assn.