Officials Ask Change in Landfill Cleanup Law

Representatives of 26 Los Angeles County communities urged federal officials Tuesday to rewrite an environmental law that has allowed industrial polluters to sue the municipalities for the cost of cleaning up toxic wastes at a Monterey Park landfill.

The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered 64 petroleum and chemical companies to remove hazardous wastes they dumped at the Operating Industries Landfill. The firms, which include Occidental Petroleum and Lockheed, have responded by trying to pass on most of the expense to surrounding cities.

Because municipal waste makes up 90% of the landfill’s contents, the communities should pay as much as 90% of the estimated $800-million cost of cleaning up the site, the companies say in a lawsuit pending in federal court.

In 1989, the EPA announced it would not take legal action against communities that owned or did business with landfills on its list of the nation’s worst toxic waste dumps, or “Superfund” sites. But federal courts ruled last December that the private companies the EPA holds responsible for the cleanup may file third-party suits against local businesses or governments that also shipped waste to the sites.

Officials from the affected communities, including Alhambra, Commerce, Bell Gardens and Cerritos, met with representatives of Congress, the White House and EPA Tuesday to request changes in the law.

In a press conference held after the closed-door meeting, the municipal officials said they should not be liable for 90% of the cleanup costs because hazardous materials made up less than 1% of the household and municipal garbage they sent to the landfill.

“The White House is sympathetic, but they said they won’t be able to look at new legislation until 1993,” said Alhambra City Manager Kevin Murphy. “The EPA said it is willing to look at its statute and see if there is any way to help us administratively, but I think it is going to take legislation to solve this.”

The 64 companies have said that removing hazardous waste from municipal dumps is more costly than other types of waste cleanup. As a result, they believe the cities should pay a high percentage of the cleanup cost.

The Pomona Freeway runs through the 190-acre dump, which has been on the EPA Superfund list since 1986.

For some cities, such as Alhambra, the damages demanded by the lawsuit are greater than the city’s entire annual operating budget.