Officials Told to Set New Deadline for Dump Repairs

After admonishing city sanitation officials for dragging their feet, the Los Angeles Planning Commission voted Thursday to let them set new deadlines for correcting environmental problems at the city-run Lopez Canyon Landfill.

The commission took the action despite calls from angry residents of Lake View Terrace and Kagel Canyon to shut down the city’s biggest dump, which for years has been a target of neighborhood complaints about noise, odor and dust.

Bureau of Sanitation officials said they completed 17 of 22 improvements that the City Council ordered for the sprawling dump in January. But the officials said they needed another six months to make the last five improvements, including construction of noise barriers and a watering system to hold down dust.

Several commissioners criticized sanitation officials for taking too long to finish the improvements, noting that the bureau had already been granted one six-month extension.

Nonetheless, the commission voted 4 to 0 to give landfill officials 30 days to draw up new deadlines for correcting the five remaining problems. If those deadlines are missed, commissioners said they would be willing to revoke the dump’s operating permit.

“They’ve got 30 days to knit the rope by which they may be hung,” Planning Commission President William G. Luddy said.

Calling sanitation officials “extremely bad neighbors” to residents living near the dump, Commissioner Theodore Stein Jr. said he might have voted to close the dump if there were any alternatives to letting it operate.

But Stein said he voted to set new deadlines because Los Angeles needs the dump to handle mountains of garbage generated every day. The landfill absorbs up to 4,000 tons of trash per day, about one-third of all refuse generated in the city.