Recycling Plant Crushing Blow to Dump Neighbors

After 20 years of living next door to methane gas leaks, dust clouds, noise and diesel fumes from the city’s last dump, homeowners in the northeastern corner of the San Fernando Valley were stunned Thursday to discover a new neighbor moving in:

A recycling plant, featuring a 40-foot-long crushing machine that will begin pulverizing old concrete and asphalt next year.

“If anybody thought we had it bad before, this is a nightmare!” said Phyllis Hines, who found out about her new neighbor when she asked county officials about the tractors and trucks working on the land next to the nearby Lopez Canyon dump early this fall.

“Can you see almost 400 trucks from the landfill added to another 200 dump trucks a day heading to this plant, with all the noise and dust and fumes?”

Hines said she was shocked to learn county officials three years ago had given approval to build the plant--located beside the dump on a hill just outside the city limits--apparently without the knowledge of many residents of the area.

County regulations require that notice of public hearings be sent to neighbors within 500 feet of such a project--but few people live that close to the site, which borders the dump.

Homeowners in the area have long looked forward to the day when the Lopez Canyon Landfill would cease operating, which they once expected would come next February under an agreement with the city. Now, in addition to discovering that the city sanitation bureau is trying to keep the dump open until 2001--the City Council is scheduled to decide Dec. 13--work has begun on the recycling plant.

“Right now, they’re grading the entire hillside,” said Woody Hastings, an aide to Councilman Richard Alarcon, whose district includes Lake View Terrace. “They intend to install a huge tub-grinder that produces noise and dust. We’re still investigating, but it appears they already have the permits they need.”

Other city officials agreed there is little they can do to regulate the facility on county land, other than control the traffic path of trucks heading along city streets to the plant.

An estimated 200 trucks per day, laden with broken concrete and other salvageable building materials, are expected to feed the crusher between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on most working days, said Ken Hayden, who is building the plant.

Hayden, owner of Sun Valley-based Hayden Brothers Engineering Contractors Inc., says the plant won’t be as intrusive as some may fear. The rock crusher, for example, will be completely enclosed, and dust will be controlled by spraying water and possibly using an air vacuum, he said.

“This is not another landfill,” Hayden said. “It’s a recycling facility. We’re saving things from going into landfills. I don’t think a lot of people understand that.”

Hayden added that the crusher will be located at least 1,000 feet from the nearest homes, that he plans to erect a fence around the facility, and that he could hire as many as 30 people from the local community to work at the facility, separating building materials and operating equipment.

After a recent inspection, county officials said they found no zoning or permit violations, and noted that all required public hearings had been held in 1992, when the county issued Hayden a conditional-use permit.

Although one person filed a written objection, nobody showed up at the hearings, Hayden noted.

Hayden said his company waited to begin work at the 42-acre site until recently because he was working out water issues with the city. When the city allowed Hayden to use its water supply, grading at the site off Paxton Road began.

Neighbors were startled to see trucks and tractors carving away earth on a previously undisturbed hill near the landfill, and some guessed at first that the work was related to a dump expansion.

Ray Jackson, a Pacoima resident who can see Hayden’s bulldozers working on the hill from the bay window in his living room, said he knew the work had to be unrelated to the landfill, which the city is debating whether to close sometime in the next five years.

He was astonished, he said, to find out it was for construction of a recycling plant. “You can’t tell me there won’t be dust and noise and more traffic,” he said.

Adding to residents’ confusion is the fact that, beginning Wednesday, trucks were being loaded up with earth excavated from Hayden’s property and then traveling a short distance up the road to the landfill, where the soil was unloaded.

Drew Sones, assistant director at the city’s Bureau of Sanitation, said Hayden had offered some of the estimated 400,000 cubic yards of soil that he will excavate as cover for the trash dumped at the landfill. On Wednesday, the city accepted the free dirt, and trucks began traveling the short path up Lopez Canyon Road between the two pieces of land.

The county permit Hayden received, he said, allows him to run three different businesses on the property: a heavy-equipment hauling company, a demolition and construction debris recycling facility, and a construction company that Hayden runs with his brothers.

Hayden, who also owns a building materials recycling plant near a landfill in Calabasas, said he would like to move from the construction business to recycling. He said his decision would be based on how well the new plant in Lake View Terrace does.

Martin is a Times staff writer and May is a correspondent.