BIGGER DUMP IN VALLEY CITY'S DEAL WITH LANDFILL OPERATOR HAS RESIDENTS SMELLING A FOUL ODOR.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Despite numerous violations and objections from nearby residents, Los Angeles city officials have cleared the way for Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley to increase its capacity, raise its height and extend its operating life.

And Waste Management Inc., which operates Bradley, is seeking approval for a further expansion which would increase capacity by 10 percent and raise the garbage dump's height by 43 feet. The city is now beginning an environmental review on that proposal.

Coming on top of the city's controversial approval of reopening Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Granada Hills and Mayor James Hahn's stated opposition to urban landfills, the two moves to expand Bradley have fueled community concern in the Northeast Valley.

Residents charge they were never notified by the city officials of the first set of proposed changes, which now only need state approval, and accuse the city of giving approval after the fact to clear Bradley's long pattern of permit violations.

``I can hardly see the foothills from my residence as it is (because of the landfill),'' said East Valley Coalition President Carol Ann Ziehler.

``Why wasn't the neighborhood notified of this? And if there were fallacies in the permit, why weren't they fixed before they started to do the work?''

Waste Management officials insist the permit now before the state is nothing more than clerical changes to correct errors in past paperwork. The proposed changes would increase the dump's capacity by 3.3 million cubic yards, raise its height by 10 feet and push back its estimated closure date to 2007.

California Integrated Waste Management Board officials who have stalled permit approval said the changes are needed to correct violations that occurred at Bradley when its operators revamped the landfill's layout without revising its permit.

The state board - not the mayor or City Council - has the final say on the changes since the city's Environmental Affairs Department has given its approval. The board's Permitting and Enforcement Committee will consider the requested permit change today in Sacramento.

Doug Corcoran, district manager for Waste Management, said the permit revision doesn't actually change the height or life expectancy of the landfill.

He said the facility's last solid waste permit listed the wrong height - the landfill elevation should have read 1,010 feet, not 1,000 feet. Bradley landfill's land-use permit with the city is good through 2007, he added, although the current solid waste permit lists an estimated closure date of 2000.

``It's really just a clerical and technical correction,'' Corcoran said.

Still, county and state officials have raised questions.

Los Angeles County Assistant Director of Public Works Mike Mohajer has said an environmental review was necessary, and there should have been public notice by the city and state.

``There is a change in elevation, and that's not allowed (without environmental review),'' Mohajer said.

The question of environmental review has been at the heart of the debate between city and state agencies over Bradley's permit.

In 1998, Waste Management asked to reconfigure the Bradley Landfill site, making improvements to catch storm water and decreasing the space allotted to disposal, according to the company and the city.

``The footprint of the landfill did not change, and elevation did not change,'' said Wayne Tsuda with the Environmental Affairs Department.

``In terms of any disposal increase, it's very negligible,'' only between 900,000 to 1 million cubic yards, according to city figures, he said.

So his department and the city's Department of Planning decided there was no need to revise Bradley's solid waste facility permit. There was no need for further environmental study and no need to bring the issue before the Planning Commission.

The state waste board initially agreed with the city's finding. But a state inspector later found the site changes merited a formal permit revision, said Mark de Bie, permitting and inspection branch manager for the waste management board.

And the state found Bradley in violation for not making changes to its permit before changing the landfill site.

Attempts to revise Bradley's permit were stalled for more than a year because of high concentrations of methane, as well as violations for explosive gas control.

Between 1998 and June 2003, Bradley racked up numerous violations for high levels of explosive gases before finally getting the problem under control with new equipment, Tsuda said. The city issued an enforcement order that allowed Bradley to keep operating while it tackled the gas problems.

The order also required Waste Management to notify residents within 100 feet of the landfill if there were high levels of methane gas for three days in a row. Bradley hasn't had to send out notices since the order was passed, Corcoran said.

State inspectors checked out the landfill, making sure the new shape was seismically sound and didn't generate more landfill gas than the collection system could handle. Now state officials agree with the city and think the changes at Bradley Landfill are not significant enough to merit more environmental study or debate, de Bie said.

``We couldn't come up with any evidence of substantial impacts that couldn't be mitigated,'' de Bie said.

But that doesn't sit well with many in the community, and Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who represents the area, agrees there is cause for concern.

``They seem to be correcting a bunch of things that are wrong,'' Galanter said.

``I'm rather puzzled and disturbed that there are all these discrepancies between the city's information and the state's information. So it's my hope that they are in fact going to get that sorted out.''