Lopez Canyon More Than Matter of Money : Dump’s effects on environment and neighbors are key issues

The news is not good for the neighbors of Los Angeles’ last city-owned and operated landfill. That means it’s time for something of a reality check for the Lopez Canyon dump and for its Lake View Terrace neighbors in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

It’s true that City Councilman Richard Alarcon and others who want the dump shut down have scored a victory of sorts in recent weeks. That occurred when the city’s Board of Public Works rejected a Bureau of Sanitation request to extend the use of Lopez Canyon for five years beyond its scheduled 1996 closing date. The Public Works Board instead opted to recommend only a one-year extension, to 1997.

Even if that decision becomes “final,” it may have as little meaning as it did when the promise was made to close the dump by 1996. The smelly and noisy, often troublesome, and sometimes dangerously toxic landfill seems far too fiscally important to the city’s short-term trash needs.

Right now, only about 9.5% of the city’s daily refuse tonnage collections are taken by Los Angeles County’s own Calabasas site. Another 16% of it winds up in privately owned and operated dumps. One is the BKK Landfill in West Covina; the other is due south of Lopez Canyon, at the Bradley Landfill near Sun Valley. The vast bulk still goes to the Lopez Canyon site, and that seems unavoidable for at least the next year.

This is not to be interpreted as a green light to keep Lopez Canyon open as long as fiscally necessary. To the contrary, we agree with the sentiments of Alarcon and Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who point out the frequency with which the city has been cited for serious health and safety violations there, including landfill gas emissions and the dumping of contaminated water. We agree that the dump should be closed and sealed soon, but there are other factors.

There is great dispute, for example, over how much more it would cost the city to close Lopez now and shift the trash to what would likely be another private operation. The city says it can’t afford to move now. But whether it would cost $56 million more over the next five years (as the city contends) or far less, we can’t forget that ours was the city that was begging the federal government for millions of dollars more to help rid ourselves of earthquake debris (and the feds said no).

Similarly, it can be argued ad infinitum that the city is doing a wonderful job of reducing landfill trash with recycling (as the Board of Public Works believes) or a woefully lethargic job (as Lopez Canyon Landfill opponents declare). The bottom line is that a several-fold increase in current levels won’t eliminate the 3,000-plus tons of refuse that wind up at Lopez on a daily basis.

We can agree on some things. The $5-million amenities fund designed to placate Lopez Canyon neighbors for the past five years was a mistake that should not be repeated. The money went for some very worthy projects, but none of it made the dump safer, cleaner or less of a burden on the surrounding community.

When the city gained a five-year extension on Lopez’s operating permit back in 1991, it should have worked much more diligently and efficiently, from Day One, to find alternative dump sites. But acknowledging that takes us nowhere.

What’s needed now is a renewed, vocal, and honest commitment to get this dump closed quickly. That means it must come from more people than Alarcon and Katz. There ought to be an acknowledgment that cost differences should not be the only factor in deciding when to dump trash at another landfill. The environmental hazards Lopez presents to its neighbors must be factored into the bean-counting equations. Right now, there probably aren’t many Lopez landfill opponents who think that the city has any credibility left in these matters.