Puente Hills Landfill Gets OK to Stay Open : Environment: Judge says dumping can continue, but work on proposed expansion area must stop.

In a defeat for homeowners, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ruled that the Puente Hills Landfill can remain open while the facility’s operators fix an environmental study of plans to keep it open for 10 more years and expand into nearby canyons.

Judge Diane Wayne said the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, which operates the landfill, could continue to dump refuse into the existing landfill but must stop working in the proposed expansion area near Hacienda Heights neighborhoods.

In July, the County Board of Supervisors approved operating permits for expansion and extension of the landfill’s life based on the environmental study. The dump had been scheduled to close Sunday.

Hacienda Heights homeowners and landfill opponents vowed to keep fighting the expansion.

“The judge bought the district’s arguments because of political pressure from 65 mayors and the county,” said Rory Brown, an activist fighting the landfill.

Mayors of 65 cities in Los Angeles County and county officials filed testimony in support of the dump staying open.

Wayne wrote that the landfill is a vital part of the county trash system and that alternative dumping sites are not “economically feasible.”

She rejected arguments from landfill opponents’ attorneys that the existing dump is polluting underground water supplies and that other landfills could take Puente Hills’ trash.

“The judge seems to believe the economic cost of closing the landfill outweighed any pollution it is causing,” said Jeffrey D. Dintzer, attorney for the Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District and Hacienda Heights Improvement Assn., which filed the lawsuit challenging the environmental study along with an Industry developer.

The landfill operators say there is no scientific evidence that the landfill is leaking.

Steven Maguin, chief of solid waste for the Sanitation Districts, said the judge averted what would have been a major disruption to refuse collection countywide.

Wayne ruled last month that the environmental impact report did not sufficiently examine the expansion effect on ground water, and failed to spell out plans to transport trash from the site by rail to remote study and build a recycling facility.

In a separate lawsuit against the county, Wayne is scheduled today to hear arguments from landfill opponents to temporarily close the facility because the new operating permit was based on the invalid environmental impact report.