San Gabriel Valley : Water Board Votes to Let Landfill Stay Open 2 More Years

Shocking environmentalists and water companies, a regional water board on Monday voted to allow an Azusa landfill to remain open two more years after its owners promised to take measures to prevent it from contaminating the San Gabriel Valley’s underground water supply that it sits above.

The regional Water Quality Control board voted 5 to 4, with the San Gabriel Valley’s representative, San Dimas Mayor Terry Dipple, providing the vital vote to keep the Azusa Land Reclamation Co. landfill open until Dec. 31, 1997. The landfill reopened in 1994 after being closed to household trash a few years before.

A pro-closure task force that includes the Metropolitan Water District and a host of San Gabriel Valley water agencies vowed to appeal the decision to the state water board.

Beneath the 80-acre landfill lies an aquifer that provides drinking water to 1 million San Gabriel Valley residents and that is already so polluted that parts of it are on the Superfund list.

“Terry Dipple let the San Gabriel Valley down,” said David Czamanske of the local chapter of the Sierra Club. “The board members ignored studies by the water agencies that show this thing is leaking 80,000 gallons of leachate a month.”

Dipple, usually a landfill opponent, said he was following the staff recommendation based on a six-month study of the dump that indicated it is not a health threat. He said he also feared that a shortage of landfill space could lead to high rates for dumping.

The landfill’s owner, Browning Ferris Industries, told the board the facility is not leaking leachate. They conceded that landfill gas is escaping into the aquifer, but promised that new treatment wells can capture it before it leaves the site.