The dump next door

Landfill foes wage lonely, uphill battle

The following is a reprint of a Signal article originally published on March 4, 1990.

KAGEL CANYON — Rob Zapple no longer takes his son for walks in the hills behind their home.

It is too disheartening now that a dump overpowers the rustic beauty of their neighborhood,

“Daddy, don’t stare at the dump,” his son tells him.

But for Zapple, even when the Lopez Canyon landfill is out of sight, it is rarely off his mind.

For two years he has led a struggle against what he and other Kagel Canyon residents say is a landfill operated with disregard for the environment and human health.

Lopez Canyon, located in the northeast San Fernando Valley community of Lake View Terrace, contains Los Angeles’ only cityrun landfill.

Now Los Angeles is pursuing Elsmere Canyon, located in the northern portion of the Santa Clarita Valley, for a landfill that will enable it to close Lopez Canyon. The experiences of those who live near Lopez offer a glimpse of what may await the neighbors of Elsmere Canyon.

Zapple and others tell of noxious gases escaping from the dump, disease-carrying birds going undeterred, being awakened by the sound of trash trucks, and a pile of garbage that has grown higher and wider than they ever anticipated.

Kagel Canyon is a rarity in the San Fernando Valley. There are no sidewalks or cul-de-sacs. The houses, built one at a time instead of by the hundreds, are hidden by trees.

It is this rural environment that has attracted people such as Matthew Faison, who said he wasn’t bothered at first by having a landfill for a neighbor.

“I knew when I moved in 10 years ago the dump was there. I didn’t mind until it just kept growing,” Faison said.

Lopez Canyon landfill was scheduled to close in 1992. Now Los Angeles officials are pushing for an expansion that would double the dump’s capacity and keep it in operation through the year 2005.

Sanitation officials hope to have the expansion proposal ready for consideration by the Los Angeles City Council this summer.

For Coddy Nuckols and his wife, Mary Shannon-Nuckols, the looming dump has cast a shadow over the dream they shared of building a custom home in the secluded canyon.

“When we moved in, we couldn’t see (the dump) at all. Now it cuts off our sunlight in the afternoon,” Nuckols said.

Through five years and two children they have lived in a tiny mobile home on an acre of property they own in Kagel Canyon. They spent $10,000 to have an architect design their dream house.

But they’ve put aside the plans and are building a standard model home designed primarily with resale value in mind.

“My feeling is that if they do expand the dump, we’ll move,” Shannon-Nuckols said.

“I bought the land five years ago so I could build a house. It’s been my dream for a long time. It’s a legacy I want to leave to my children,” Nuckols said. “I changed plans for a dream house, where we wanted to live the rest for our lives, to what may be a (speculation) house.”

Shannon-Nuckols said what worries her most is the potential health threat to their children posed by living near a landfill for the next 15 years. She said a doctor told her the children could suffer liver damage from long-term exposure to the landfill.

‘What is that smell?’

Zapple and other members of the group, Communities United For Safe Trash Management, have picketed, testified at public hearings, written letters and done everything possible to get the attention of politicians and bureaucrats.

“There’s not a lot of economic clout in this community,” Faison said. “We have to drive them crazy in other ways.”

While they have been unsuccessful in forcing closure of the dump, they have witnessed improvements in its operation.

The city has upgraded the landfill’s drainage system to prevent a repeat of a 1983 incident in which a wall of the landfill burst during a heavy rainfall and garbage washed into a nearby valley.

And in December the city installed a gas recovery system to collect methane gas.

Methane is created by rotting garbage. The gas can build up underground and eventually escape into the air above a landfill, AQMD spokesman David Rutherford said.

“That gas, unless it is collected, poses a significant health risk,” he said.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District ordered the city to install the system in 1986 after finding hazardous levels of methane escaping from the landfill. The city was granted several variances that allowed it to operate without the system for three years.

In the past 14 months, the AQMD has cited the landfill 12 times, including once for excavating without a permit last March. The district made the citation after two workers-collapsed and had to be hospitalized when they hit a pocket of gas.

Also included in the 12 citations are seven for public nuisance odors and one for an incident in which three children became ill from fumes, Rutherford said.

Rutherford said the 12 citation notices have not been settled with the city.

In September, Zapple won a small claims court case against the city for gases that wafted into his backyard from the landfill. The court ruled that the odors were a public nuisance, but because Zapple could not prove they were a health hazard, he was awarded only $501. Methane is odorless, but its emission is frequently accompanied by unpleasant smelling gases.

Bureaucratic obstacles have kept Zapple from collecting his money, he said. Zapple added he is not satisfied with the current gas recovery system and that odors are still prevalent

“It has not gone far enough. The city is responsible for putting the garbage in the ground. They are responsible for the gases,” he said.

Ray Morley, who lives about a mile from the dump, said he has vomited several times after smelling odors from the dump while working outside.

“I can’t say it’s exactly from that (dump). But I never had a problem until I moved out here,” he said. Morley, who has not consulted a doctor about the vomiting, said the the most recent bout was on Feb. 7.

But Richard Hanson, who directs the county health department’s solid waste management program, said the gas recovery system has all but eliminated the problem.

“There is little gas that’s escaping from the landfill,” Hanson said. “As far as I know it’s been very effective,” he said.

Mike Miller, assistant director of the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, said there has been no proof of anyone being harmed by fumes from the landfill.