Firm Plans to Close W. Covina Landfill in Deal to Sell Dump : Trash: Agreement hinges on reopening of facility in Sunshine Canyon, which neighbors have been fighting.

West Covina officials were optimistic Friday that a decision by BKK Corp. to close its 583-acre landfill, which takes a quarter of Los Angeles County’s trash, would end a decade of legal and environmental wrangling over the mountain-sized dump.

The decision to shut down the landfill as early as next spring is part of a deal that waste disposal giant Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. struck this week to purchase BKK’s proposed Elsmere Canyon landfill in the Santa Clarita Valley. That sale hinges on the reopening of BFI’s Sunshine Canyon landfill and, within a week of the reopening, the closure of the West Covina dump.

“I’m very excited,” said West Covina Councilman Michael Touhey. “It will be excellent for our city and a tremendous victory for residents who fought for the landfill’s closure.”

Touhey, a longtime opponent of the West Covina dump, said he expects that at its next meeting, the council will discuss the status of a lawsuit the city has filed seeking closure of the dump. The suit alleges that BKK reneged on an agreement to close the dump by November. BKK, however, has contended that it has the right to operate the dump until 2006.

Although the closure was welcome in West Covina, officials in Azusa and Santa Clarita said they fear their areas will become the new dumping grounds.

Azusa and San Gabriel Basin water officials said they are concerned that BFI will dump more into an unlined 80-acre Azusa landfill that reopened last year and which they contend is polluting the area’s ground water. BFI executives say they will open a major recycling center there soon that could produce more waste.

“Are they going to send more trucks of trash here to pollute the water we drink?” Councilwoman Cristina Madrid asked.

Ron Gastelum, chief operating officer for Torrance-based BKK, said the decision to close the landfill was motivated by a wish to end litigation with the city. Although the price was not disclosed, Gastelum said the paramount reason for the deal is to provide up to $60 million BKK needs for the closure of the West Covina facility and long-term maintenance of the site.

West Covina City Manager Jim Starbird said that although he is cautiously optimistic about the closure, its timing is dependent on reopening the Sunshine landfill, north of Granada Hills.

BFI was forced to close the Sunshine Canyon dump in 1991 when its operating permit expired. Since then, the firm has received repeated approvals from Los Angeles County for renewed dumping, only to be stymied through legal maneuvers by neighbors and the city of Los Angeles.

The city most recently used its zoning authority to bar trash trucks from using an access road that is owned by BFI but runs through city territory to the dump, which straddles the city-county line. County supervisors are now considering whether to accept title to the private road, on the theory that the city could not impose zoning regulations on the county government.

BFI official Arnie Berghoff said if that happens it will take until March to get the site operational.

West Covina homeowners say they will pray for that day. Susan Homme, who lives near the West Covina dump, said the closure is “good news.” But, she added, “I’ll believe it when I see the gates close and the trash trucks disappear.”

Times staff writer Myron Levin and correspondent Danica Kirka contributed to this report.