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The county may avoid fines of up to $75,000 daily for failing to have gas-control systems at three landfills if the Board of Supervisors approves a settlement with the South Coast Air Quality Management District on Tuesday.

The proposal would give the county until July 31 to install a gas-control system at the Olinda Alpha landfill in Brea and an as yet undetermined deadline for installing the same system at the Prima Deshecha Canyon fill in San Juan Capistrano and the Santiago Canyon fill in East Orange.

Such systems keep potentially toxic chemicals such as benzene from entering the air and can be used to convert the gasses into electricity. The devices were, by law, to have been operating by Jan. 1. The district could have fined the county $25,000 per landfill for every day after the deadline that the devices were not working. It also could have closed the landfills.

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The settlement proposal was worked out in negotiations between lawyers for the county and for the district.

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