O.C. May End Long Ban on L.A. County’s Trash : Waste: Proposal would kill decades-old prohibition to make up for $12-million loss in landfill dumping fees.

Orange County officials may soon begin inviting a limited number of Los Angeles haulers to dump about 2,500 tons of garbage each day in county landfills.

If adopted, the proposal would end a decades-old ban on outside trash in local landfills. The idea, outlined in a memo by the head of the finance committee of Orange County’s Integrated Waste Management Commission, comes in response to the potential annual loss of $12 million in dumping fees at the Olinda landfill near Brea.

The county expects to lose that much money because one of the local haulers, Anaheim Disposal, has recently pulled much of its business out of the Olinda landfill and has begun sending nearly 2,500 tons of garbage a day to a private dump in West Covina.

If it continues to take its trash to West Covina, Anaheim Disposal’s departure would help Orange County extend the life of its landfills. But officials say the abrupt loss of the fees has wreaked havoc on the county’s waste management budget and forced them to consider the extraordinary solution of soliciting more garbage at the same time that they are asking residents to recycle.

“It’s an inconceivable solution, but we’ve been forced into the position of thinking seriously about inconceivable solutions by the actions of one hauler,” Lee Risner, city manager of La Habra and the author of the finance committee memo, said Wednesday. “We just don’t have a lot of choices.”

Risner called the proposal to lift the ban a “temporary solution to a temporary problem,” adding that he hopes that Anaheim Disposal will soon bring its business back to Orange County.

Vincent Taormina, chief executive of Anaheim Disposal, said he had no immediate comment on Risner’s memo. But he has previously stated that Anaheim Disposal is only sending its loads to the BKK landfill in West Covina on an experimental basis to study potential cost savings.

The company has not yet decided whether to keep using the BKK landfill permanently, Taormina added.

Allowing Los Angeles waste haulers to bring their garbage to Orange County would represent a dramatic change of course. For at least 20 years, the county has barred other jurisdictions from crossing the county line to dump their loads, a move taken to extend the life of local landfills and keep out-of-county trucks from clogging roadways.

Although landfill space remains at a premium, county officials were surprised last week to learn that Anaheim Disposal was taking its business elsewhere. The county’s waste management budget of about $140 million already had been approved, and the gate fees at county landfills were based on the firm continuing to use the Olinda landfill.

Anaheim Disposal serves Anaheim, Placentia, Yorba Linda, Brea and Garden Grove. It collects nearly half of all the garbage deposited daily at the Olinda landfill and 15% of all garbage collected in Orange County.

The result of the company’s departure--or what Risner in his memo called a “defection”--has been a huge, unanticipated shortfall in the county waste management budget, and officials are desperate to make up the difference. Bringing in 2,500 tons a day from Los Angeles County haulers would be one way to do it, and the memo suggests that it may be the most practical and politically viable solution.

“This would not be an ‘opening up’ of the county landfills to Los Angeles County haulers, but only a temporary solution to offset the revenue reduction caused by the diversion,” Risner wrote in the memo. “An ordinance change would be required.”

In addition to that suggestion, the memo said the finance committee is studying three other options:

* “Mothball” the Olinda landfill for the rest of this year, forcing other local haulers to ship their loads elsewhere.

* Close the Olinda landfill altogether. That would cost roughly $25 million and force local haulers to go elsewhere.

* Raise the gate fees at Olinda so that the other haulers using that landfill would be forced to make up the deficit caused by Anaheim Disposal’s departure.

The final option would mean passing on significant increases to county residents. Estimates range from about $1.20 a month to more than $3, and many cities already are furious about the rates being charged by the county.

In an interview Wednesday, Risner said the first two suggestions--to close or “mothball” the Olinda landfill--are “just not viable” because of the costs and implications for future landfill planning.

And the suggestion to raise fees at Olinda has a significant drawback as well, he added.

“That’s political suicide,” he said.