State Not Enforcing Landfill Safety Laws, Suit Says

Arguing that the state has done little to control leaking chemical waste and other hazards at a number of Southern California landfills, the Natural Resources Defense Council on Tuesday filed a lawsuit charging the California Integrated Waste Management Board with failing to enforce laws designed to protect public health and safety.

According to the suit, the state board has neglected its duties to shut down some landfills that have been filled beyond capacity and to stop contamination of ground water by benzene, vinyl chloride and other chemicals linked to cancer that are leaching out of several dumps. In a news release, the environmental group said the waste board’s “disregard of state law has aggravated public health and environmental hazards, including allowing uncontrolled gas emissions and landfill leachate and the exposing of waste to disease transmitting rodents, flies and birds.”

Maribel Marin, a Natural Resources Defense Council spokeswoman, said the lawsuit grew out of a study of the waste board’s own records. Marin said that the study focused on poor enforcement of 190 notices of violation sent out to landfills around the state. She said that more than half of the notices cited unsafe conditions at Southern California landfills.

Marin said conditions were worst at six dumps in San Bernardino and Imperial counties.

For example, she said, a dump in Colton that has a permit to receive 180 tons of waste per day has been accepting at least 1,000 tons per day for more than a year, a period in which vinyl chloride has been leaking from the landfill into nearby monitoring wells.

Marin said nothing was done about an underground fire for two years after it was detected at a Calexico dump, and she said no action has been taken despite letters from the Regional Water Quality Control Board in the area stating that the Calexico dump and another in Brawley should be closed.

Specifically, the lawsuit contends that the waste board violated state law by neglecting to make the public aware of hazardous conditions, by failing to prepare cleanup schedules ensuring prompt remedies and by allowing overused, hazardous sites to operate without permit renewals or closure plans.

In addition, the suit challenges the waste board’s recent decision to allow yard waste deposited at landfills to count toward the state’s goal of reducing, recycling or composting 50% of California’s waste by the year 2000.

Ralph Chandler, executive director of the waste board, said Tuesday he was surprised by the lawsuit because he had thought that discussions with the environmental group were leading to a resolution of its concerns.

He said that the board had agreed to speed up enforcement actions against landfills where there are hazardous conditions.

“The only unresolved issue was whether we would reimburse them for their legal expenses,” Chandler said. “They were asking for about $40,000 to cover their research costs, and we felt it was inappropriate to cover that cost with public funds.”