Longer Life Proposed for City-Owned Landfill : Lopez Canyon: Recommendation to keep dump open until 2000 angers Lake View Terrace residents.

Los Angeles can save $72 million by extending the life of the Lopez Canyon landfill in Lake View Terrace by five years, according to a preliminary city report released Thursday--a recommendation that enraged dump-hating neighbors.

Because of the savings, the city’s Bureau of Sanitation recommends that the city renew a temporary operating permit that expires in 1996 to keep the city-owned dump open until 2000, the draft report said.

“It’s a dollar issue,” said Michael Williams, an assistant director for the bureau. “It’s about $70 million cheaper than the next least expensive option.”

Williams added that the report is a preliminary recommendation and that a final decision on the extension will have to be made by the City Council sometime in May.

But the recommendation has already raised a furor among residents and elected officials who represent the area, who said they were promised that the dump would close in 1996.

“We are outraged, upset,” said Ron Zapple, president of the Kagel Canyon Civic Assn., a group that represents residents around the landfill. He said landfill neighbors want the dump closed in 1996.

“Officially we have heard nothing” about an extension, said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Panorama City), who represents the Lake View Terrace area. “But we have been dealing with Lopez Canyon long enough to know what they are trying to do.

“When the Bureau of Sanitation says that Lopez is the easiest and cheapest way, they are trying to get out of the commitment they made to people in the Valley.”

According to the report, the cost of dumping city waste in Lopez Canyon from 1996 to 2000 would be about $66 million, while the cost of hauling waste to nearby landfills, such as the Calabasas Landfill in Agoura Hills, would be more than $138 million.

The third option studied by the Bureau of Sanitation calls for hauling trash by rail to remote landfills, such as a massive dump in Utah. That would cost $178 million over the five-year period, the report said.

The city collects and dumps about 5,000 tons of refuse per day, most of which ends up at the Lopez Canyon landfill.

The report said that extending the life of Lopez Canyon would be the cheapest alternative because the city has already paid for many capital improvements at the landfill and has set aside money to close the dump.

It also estimates that the landfill will still have room for more than 3 million tons of trash when the current permit expires in 1996.

In addition to the uproar over the proposed operating extension, the Lopez Canyon dump was also criticized Thursday at a city Planning Commission meeting for violating methane gas emission regulations.

Delwin A. Biagi, director of the Bureau of Sanitation, told commissioners that the South Coast Air Quality Management District warned the bureau six times in the past year that the methane gas collection and burn-off systems were releasing quantities of unburned gas over the acceptable level. Each time they were given 24 hours to comply. They were found in violation only once.

Half a dozen residents attended the hearing to voice concerns about the site.

“They were required to have noise meters but the noise is still there,” said Zapple of the Kagel Canyon Civic Assn. “You don’t know how bad it is . . . you can’t even think with the constant noise.”

Barbara Hubbard, a resident of Lake View Terrace, said the community has not forgotten the 1996 deadline and wants the city to hold sanitation officials to it.

“They have promised for so many years to close Lopez Canyon,” Hubbard said. “The problem is that the Bureau of Sanitation creates a crisis by not acting. They are supposed to find alternatives (for the dump site) but they have not.”