Operators of Azusa Landfill Will Reopen Site : Environment: Dumping of household and municipal waste to resume after study reveals space for additional trash. Announcement stuns water board officials and environmentalists.

To the surprise of regional water authorities and the indignation of environmentalists, the operators of the controversial Azusa landfill have announced they will reopen the dump to household and municipal waste.

“We never saw the train coming,” said Rod Nelson, head of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board’s landfill division.

Environmentalists and local water officials thought they had heard the last of the Azusa landfill three years ago when its operators lost a court battle to dump household waste in a proposed 302-acre expansion. Opponents said the dumping would threaten the region’s underground water supply.

Environmentalists and water officials believed the state Court of Appeal ruling meant the end to residential and commercial waste other than construction and demolition debris.

Not so, say officials at Browning Ferris Industries Inc., whose subsidiary Azusa Land Reclamation Co. operates the landfill in an old rock quarry south of the Foothill (210) Freeway.

Landfill operators say the court order and subsequent instructions from the State Water Resources Control Board allow dumping of household waste in the existing 80-acre landfill and the placing of inert construction materials in the expansion.

“The reopening of this landfill to household waste is imminent,” said Les Bittenson, vice president of Browning Ferris Industries of California.

Bittenson said his firm stopped dumping household waste only because the original site was thought to be full. But through new mapping technologies and the decomposing of waste, the firm discovered it still has room for 3.2 million tons of trash, or 160,000 truckloads.

“It’s going to take six or seven years at about 2,000 tons a day, five days a week to close out the original site,” he said.

The regional water board first heard of the landfill operator’s plans May 9. The board could not issue a notice to delay the reopening because the issue was not on the agenda, but the board did ask its attorneys to review the legality of a reopening to household trash, water officials said.

The board believed there was no room in the landfill, Nelson said.

If the landfill operator is correct, the water board might prefer that the new dumping go into the expansion area, which has a triple liner to prevent damage to ground water, he said.

The landfill sits atop a huge aquifer that supplies water used by 1 million San Gabriel Valley residents. The aquifer is also the nation’s biggest Superfund site because of contamination from industrial solvents and degreasing agents. BFI officials say 10 years of testing show that the landfill is not to blame for the pollution.

In vetoing the dumping of potentially toxic wastes in the expansion, the three-judge panel wrote that the dump expansion “could cause numerous and substantial adverse changes” in the San Gabriel Basin, including “contamination of a public drinking water supply.”

The Azusa City Council voted unanimously Monday to ask the regional water board to attempt to delay any opening of the landfill to household trash while the city assesses what action it can take.

“I think it’s a bad idea to put a trash landfill over a water supply,” said Mayor Stephen J. Alexander. However, the city could make $1 million a year from a reopening of the landfill for household trash.

Environmentalists said they are still concerned about the possible dangers. “It’s a bad day for Azusa. It’s bad for our children and anyone else who has to drink our water in future years,” said Jim McJunkin, a leader of Azusa-based Save the Foothills.

“This landfill is right over an aquifer. Needless to say I am not exactly ecstatic about it reopening,” said Dr. Forrest Tennant, a former West Covina councilman who led the campaign against the expansion.

Tennant said he had met with the landfill’s operators and is seeking advice from other activists on what action to take.