Latest Bout May Not End Fight Over Landfill’s Use

A state water board’s decision to block the reopening of the Azusa landfill is not very likely to be the last word on the dump’s fate, partisans on both sides said.

“One more hurdle has been passed but the end of the race is still to come,” said environmentalist Allen Arata, head of a Sierra Club solid waste subcommittee.

Although officials of Azusa Land Reclamation Inc. said they have not decided whether to appeal last week’s state Water Resources Control Board decision, they promised to persist in their fight.

“We will continue in our efforts to obtain the necessary state permits to accept municipal waste,” said Bill Hutton, an attorney for the landfill firm’s parent company, Browning-Ferris Industries Inc., the nation’s second largest waste hauler. The company has a 30-day period during which it can appeal.

The state board, meeting in Newport Beach on Wednesday, concluded that allowing the 302-acre facility to reopen and expand would pose an “unacceptable risk” to the quality of the San Gabriel Valley water basin.

The board voted 3 to 1 in favor of a petition sought by the Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster. The Watermaster, which oversees water rights, sought to close the landfill by blocking expansion of the site, located near the Foothill and San Gabriel River freeways.

The board dismissed guarantees by Azusa Land Reclamation officials, who said a sophisticated liner system would guard against pollution seeping into the water table.

“The question is not if the ground water will be polluted but merely when,” the board said.

The landfill sits atop a huge aquifer that, during recent decades, has been contaminated with industrial solvents and degreasing agents from many sources. Officials of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1984 took the unusual step of putting the entire San Gabriel Basin on its national priority list of Superfund cleanup sites.

“This is a big victory for us,” said Royall K. Brown, a West Covina board member of the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District. Joining the district in opposing the expansion were other water agencies, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The landfill, which was prohibited in February under a court order from accepting residential and commercial trash, is still allowed to accept “inert wastes,” such as dirt and concrete rubble.

The dump’s closure came after intense debate over whether the landfill threatens the San Gabriel Valley’s underground water supply, which serves more than 1 million residents.

In addition to its ruling on the water hazard, the state water board last week cited other concerns. They include fears that the geology of the area is “ill-suited” for disposal of wastes.

“We feel today’s decision is very significant. It’s like winning two out of three sets of tennis matches. We haven’t totally won yet, but we’re closer,” said Burton J. Gindler, an attorney who represented the Watermaster, the court-appointed board responsible for overseeing pumping in the Main San Gabriel Basin.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge in May, 1990, ruled that the dump could expand in order to continue to accept most trash. But the 2nd District Court of Appeal rescinded that approval on Jan. 14. Later that month, the California Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by the landfill.

The Court of Appeal ruling found that insufficient environmental studies had been undertaken. Its decision paved the way for the matter to go before the Water Resources Control Board last week.

That board had given permission in 1989 for the landfill to continue operation. The approval came on a 3-2 vote.

However, two of the three who voted for that order are no longer on the board.

Voting Wednesday to block expansion were chairman W. Donald Maughan, E. H. (Ted) Finster, and John Caffrey. Eliseo M. Samaneigo, who voted in favor of the landfill in 1989, was the only dissenter on the expansion ban.