Landfill Expansion Proposal a Hard Sell : Waste: Sanitation officials are pulling out all the stops as they try to win neighbors over to a plan to enlarge a dump that is already one of the nation’s biggest.

As a van bounced over the rough roads of one of the country’s biggest landfills, driver Theresa Dodge offered sightseeing options to half a dozen passengers, neighbors of the 1,365-acre facility on the San Gabriel Valley’s southern rim.

Would they like to see machines that shred tires, the project engineer asked, or the “green waste” of shrubs and trees? Or how about a look at the mega-compost pile, or the world’s largest facility for converting landfill gasses into electricity? Or maybe another peek at the unloading garbage trucks, part of the chain of more than 1,500 daily? “What would you like to see next?”

But after 1 1/2 hours of touring on a 100-degree day, most of the passengers expressed only wilting interest in seeing any more niceties of a state-of-the-art dump.

“I’m still totally opposed,” said Hacienda Heights resident Barbara Conyers as she and her husband, Robert, left the van for a brief walk in a canyon that one day may be partly filled with trash.

The Conyerses are among the “not easily converted” in an ongoing war between landfill managers, who want to greatly expand use of the Puente Hills dump site during the next 20 years, and neighbors who want it shut down in November 1993, when its county land-use permit expires.

In an attempt to win friends for its application for a new permit, the landfill has been conducting small public relations tours since mid-July, hoping to show that the dump is well-managed and strives to be as environmentally sensitive as possible.

So far, Dodge, one of several engineers overseeing the application, said she has converted a majority of the skeptics who have taken the tour.

But, like some of their neighbors who live along suburban streets in Hacienda Heights and nearby Whittier, the Conyerses, both teachers in their late 50s, say they cannot be persuaded that the environmental damage is justified.

They complain about the dump’s further encroachment onto their neighborhoods and the pristine portions of the Puente Hills, which are still abundant with wildlife and native plants even though they are located in the center of Los Angeles County at the intersection of the Pomona and San Gabriel River freeways.

“The dump on our border poses a very real threat to our quality of life,” says a leaflet distributed by expansion opponents. “It has a negative impact on the air we breathe, the sounds we hear, the water we drink, the view from our back yards and the value of our property.”

But the dump’s operator, the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, says that a potentially burgeoning Los Angeles County population and an expected shortage of landfill space necessitate expansion to avert a “trash crisis.”

Dump managers argue that almost one-third of Los Angeles County’s trash goes there and that closing the dump next year could leave more than 60 Los Angeles County cities scrambling to find a new place to take their trash.

That is why the managers say they want to put an additional 75 million tons of trash at Puente Hills during the next two decades. The application asks for permission to dump on 470 acres. Of that, 210 acres are already in use as a dump, 130 acres are used only to excavate dirt to cover each day’s trash, and another 130 acres are untouched canyon land.

Also, the Sanitation Districts want to build what is known as a materials recovery and rail-loading facility, or MRF.

This facility would separate and recycle trash and load the residual trash onto rail cars for disposal out of the county. The MRF--one of several proposed in the county--would handle 4,000 tons a day. About 15% of that would be recycled.

Expanding Puente Hills is the only responsible thing to do, said engineer Dodge. “Our trash disposal system in the county is so tight now,” she said. “There is no flex.”

For several years, landfill officials have spoken of an impending trash crisis that had been predicted to hit by 1991.

But a combination of two factors--recycling and recession--forestalled that. State legislation requires that communities reduce the trash going to landfills 25% by 1995 and 50% by 2000. Overall dumping now is down by 10% in the county from five years ago.

Still, Dodge said, during the next eight years, six of the eight existing major landfills are scheduled to close. That includes both Puente Hills and the BKK Corp. landfill in West Covina. Combined, the two take more than half of the county’s trash.

Puente Hills is by far the least problematic location in the county for expansion, Dodge said, asserting that it will cause the least environmental harm of any landfill alternatives. “This is an environmentally sound project,” she said.

In recent weeks the debate has intensified as landfill officials complete studies that they expect to present later this year for approval by the county Regional Planning Commission. In the last month, audiences totaling more than 750 people attended a series of three hearings on the draft environmental studies of the proposed expansion. A fourth hearing is scheduled for Sept. 14 at Los Altos High School in Hacienda Heights from 7 to 10 p.m.

Landfill opponents, who have banded together as “The No on the Dump Committee,” sum up their arguments in literature being distributed to dump neighbors:

“Literally thousands of trucks will bring 17,000 tons of trash per day from all over Los Angeles County and leave it in your back yard,” the leaflet says. “More than 100 million tons of other people’s garbage, plus smog. That is what we have to look forward to. About the only benefit is that you might be able to read by the light of the gas flares.”

Opponents such as the Conyerses say they are worried that the expansion will ruin unspoiled canyons filled with hundreds of native oaks. Since 1966, the Conyerses have lived in a hilly Hacienda Heights neighborhood within sight of the 1,000-foot peaks that surround the landfill.

They moved there almost five years before the Sanitation Districts took over what was then a small landfill operation in the canyons of the Puente Hills.

“One of my concerns is displaced animal life. Either they are going to be killed or they will have to move their homes,” said Robert Conyers as he and his wife walked along a dirt road on the edge of a canyon proposed for the expansion.

Landfill officials acknowledge that there would be adverse environmental impacts because of the expansion. Natural ridgelines would be altered. Officials also cite the loss of 37 acres of oak woodland, including 400 mature oaks, six of which have diameters measuring more than three feet.

In addition, 166 acres of wildlife habitat would be lost, a wildlife corridor would be disrupted and the nest of a great horned owl might be disturbed.

To make up for the loss of trees, landfill officials say they would replace them at a 3-to-1 ratio.

Even with the 130-acre expansion, landfill officials say, 705 acres of property owned by the dump would be left untouched--including three canyons at the southeastern end of the site that are valued by hikers and environmentalists. And, the officials say, once the facility closes permanently, the entire 1,365 acres will be left as open space.

To demonstrate the landfill’s commitment, Dodge said, its management has promised that if a new conditional land-use permit is received, the three southeast canyons will be deeded to the county Parks and Recreation Department.

The parkland idea pleases some of the landfill’s neighbors, said Jeff Yann, chairman of a citizens advisory committee formed by the landfill operators and the treasurer of a neighborhood group, the Hacienda Heights Improvement Assn.

But even if the three canyons are set aside, Yann said, “you still have to realize that elsewhere (the landfill operators) are going to do a lot of damage. They’re not exactly preserving canyons.”

Yann said he wishes that the Sanitation Districts would present smaller-scale alternatives.

“There may be some options for continued operations that may be acceptable to the homeowners’ group,” he said. “We’d be willing to explore alternatives.”

Times staff writer Myron Levin contributed to this story.

Proposed Landfill Expansion

The conditional use permit for the Puente Hills Landfill, one of America’s largest, expires November, 1993. The Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County are asking for a new permit to extend the landfill for 20 years during which another 75 million tons of trash would be dumped there. If the permit is granted, the northern part of the 530 acres currently being used would become inactive and 130 acres of pristine hills on the southeast side of the landfill would be opened to dumping. Also, the landfill’s managers want to build a trash separating and recycling facility that would process 4,000 tons a day of trash on another part of the 1,365-acre site. Residue from this would be hauled away on trains for disposal out of the county.