Earthquake: The Long Road Back : City Officials to Study Hauling Earthquake Debris to Utah Site : Trash: Council members worry about the large amounts of extra refuse being sent to Valley landfills.

Worries about the volume of earthquake debris filling San Fernando Valley landfills led members of a city ad-hoc recovery committee Tuesday to instruct city officials to investigate the possibility of hauling trash to a dump in Utah.

Although area landfills are not in immediate danger of reaching capacity because of earthquake debris, sanitation officials said the quake has forced them to focus attention on long-term landfill alternatives.

“There is no immediate capacity problem,” said Lillian Kawasaki, general manager of the city’s Environmental Affairs Department, which regulates landfills in the city. “But we are concerned about long-term capacity.”

The amount of trash and earthquake debris has increased 15% at some Valley landfills and gravel pits and as much as 280% at other dumps, officials said Tuesday.

The idea of hauling local trash by rail to a 3,000-acre landfill in East Carbon City, Utah, has been studied by many public agencies in Southern California to avoid the trash crisis that would occur when area landfills reach capacity. It is the first time that the city of Los Angeles has shown interest in the idea.

The action to seek out new landfill space came during a meeting at which three Valley council members on the panel began to show impatience with the speed of recovery.

During questioning of Kawasaki and other city officials, Councilman Hal Bernson, head of the panel, and council members Richard Alarcon and Laura Chick began sniping at each other for talking out of turn.

“Now, it’s my turn,” Chick said loudly after trying in vain to ask a question of sanitation officials.

“I’m still chair of this committee,” said Bernson, pointing out that as chairman he decides the order of the speakers.

Later, during discussions about road closures in Sylmar, Alarcon criticized Robert Yates, head of the city’s Department of Transportation, for not moving fast enough to open San Fernando Road north to the Golden State Freeway in his district.

“The decisions that are being taken are locking my community in,” Alarcon told Yates.

“Nobody is picking on your community,” Bernson said, noting that earthquake damage to the Simi Valley Freeway also has created traffic headaches in his district.

Later, Alarcon conceded that the members of the panel were “all a little antsy” and said that he plans to speak to Bernson about resolving the disputes on the panel.

“I think the decorum of that committee could be improved,” he said.

But during the committee’s meeting, panel members were able to agree on at least one thing: The rubble and waste created by the quake would take up badly needed landfill space.

“We are losing landfill space that we will never recover,” Alarcon said.

Most of the earthquake debris from throughout the city has been taken to landfills and gravel pits in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

The Calmat Properties Co., for instance, normally accepts about 2,500 tons of brick, concrete and masonry daily at its Sun Valley-based sand and gravel pit, said company Vice President George Cosby. But since the quake, he said the firm has received about 7,000 tons of rubble daily, including concrete from the damaged Golden State, Antelope Valley and Simi Valley freeways.

“Every day is a bigger day,” he said.

At Lopez Canyon Landfill, a city-operated dump in Lake View Terrace, the city has approved a temporary permit to increase the daily capacity from 4,000 tons of trash to 6,000 tons. The landfill’s operating permit expires in 1996.

The Bradley West Landfill in Sun Valley also has seen a 10% to 15% increase in rubbish since the quake, said company representative Greg Loughnane. The city has approved a temporary permit to allow the company to increase its daily capacity from 6,000 tons of trash to 14,000 tons, he said.

But representatives for all three sites said they are not yet in danger of reaching their capacity due to the increase in quake debris.