Lake View Terrace : Lawmakers Call for Closing Lopez Dump

Calling the city-owned Lopez Canyon Landfill in Lake View Terrace a “high-visibility failure,” Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) and U.S. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) urged Mayor Richard Riordan to close the landfill when its permit expires next year.

The lawmakers also offered to help the city of Los Angeles develop alternatives to keeping the dump open past its scheduled closure date in February.

City sanitation officials have said that disposing of city garbage elsewhere would cost $56 million more than continuing to operate Lopez--where 85% of trash collected in the city is dumped--for another five years.

The Board of Public Works last month rejected the Sanitation Department’s recommendation for a five-year extension, opting instead to keep the landfill open just one more year. The issue next goes to the Planning Commission and ultimately to the City Council, which is expected to make a decision sometime next month.

In a four-page letter sent to Riordan last week, Berman and Katz criticized the savings figure of $56 million cited by sanitation officials as justification for an extension. That figure, and other findings presented in a report prepared by an independent auditor, “significantly understates the costs to keep Lopez Canyon open and overstates the costs for alternatives to the landfill,” the lawmakers wrote.

Katz and Berman noted that projected costs of continued operation of Lopez excluded post-closure maintenance costs of more than $36 million. They also said the savings figure did not take into account other expenditures, such as the $100,000 cost of hiring a private law firm and the $750,000 cost of extending a contract for an environmental consulting firm.

A spokeswoman for Riordan said the mayor usually does not get involved in planning issues, adding she did not know whether he had taken a position regarding the landfill.