L.A. Fined $5,000 for Landfill Excavation
The city of Los Angeles will be required to pay its first $5,000 penalty into a community trust fund for illegally excavating buried waste at the Lopez Canyon Landfill, officials said.
South Coast Air Quality Management District officials decided Wednesday to cite the city for failing to notify the agency before workers dug up buried waste at the landfill on Sept. 12, said AQMD chief prosecutor Diana Love.
City Department of Sanitation officials ordered the excavation in an effort to extinguish an underground fire that had been smoldering for seven days. The AQMD should have been notified since the excavation was not an emergency, Love said.
Under an agreement negotiated among the city, AQMD and community representatives last year, the city must pay $5,000 into a community fund each time it is cited for violating state air pollution laws at the landfill, Love said.
“What we all want is for the city to run Lopez responsibly,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who negotiated the agreement. “When they don’t, the money serves as a tangible means of apologizing to surrounding neighbors.”
Wednesday’s citation was the first the city has received at the landfill since the agreement.
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