BRADLEY LANDFILL MIGHT BE STUDIED RESIDENTS WILL ASK STATE FOR DUMP TESTS.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Saying the city has continuously misled Sun Valley residents about the operation of Bradley Landfill, opponents today will ask state regulators to conduct a full environmental study of the dump.

Leaders of the East Valley Coalition will be in Sacramento as the California Integrated Waste Management Board votes on proposed revisions of Bradley's operating permit. The coalition says the revisions point to the need for additional study of the dump.

``There's a change in the tonnage allowed. There's a change in the elevation. There's a change in the actual footprint of the landfill. All of these were considered insignificant, and we were not notified,'' Carol Ann Ziehler, president of the coalition, said Tuesday. ``These changes have been devastating to the community.''

Officials with the landfill owner, Waste Management, Inc., did not return calls. However, they have previously said the proposed revisions would not increase the amount of garbage Bradley could handle but would simply fix previous clerical and technical errors on the permit.

State waste officials said the board could intervene if the community could show there were serious impacts from the landfill that haven't been studied before.

Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn's office did not return phone calls, but he is sending a representative to today's meeting. Hahn has said in the past he opposes landfills in the city.

When the state waste board meets today, it can approve the proposed changes or send the permit back to the city for additional work. The revisions requested by Waste Management would:

--Increase Bradley's height from 1,000 to 1,010 feet.

--Extend the estimated closure from 2000 to 2007.

--Increase the capacity from 29.6 million to 38.6 million cubic yards.

The capacity increase has been one of the most contested aspects of the permit revision. Community members charge Bradley has been allowed to slowly increase in size over the years by making incremental changes deemed insignificant by city regulators.

The proposed permit revision and current debate at the state stems from a 1997 request by Waste Management to reconfigure Bradley Landfill.

The company asked the Los Angeles Planning Department for permission to make the sloped sides of the landfill more steep. Waste Management then closed the older, unlined section called Bradley East and shifted the remaining capacity - approximately 500,000 cubic yards - to the newer Bradley West dump.

Planners decided that the net result was a decrease in capacity, so didn't order additional environmental study or public hearings. The city's Environmental Affairs Department, which inspects landfills, concurred.

A year later, however, a state waste board inspector determined that the regrading project resulted in a 3.3-million-cubic yard increase in capacity. As a result, the state cited Waste Management for failing to change its solid waste permit before configuring the landfill.

The discovery also prompted a yearlong study of the landfill reconfiguration. State officials ultimately agreed with the city and said Bradley Landfill didn't need more environmental study.

Still, the reconfiguration has raised questions about the landfill permitting process.

``Somebody obviously made a mistake somewhere, and I hope the waste board figures it out,'' said Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who represents the district where Bradley is located. Galanter is in the process of forming a community advisory committee on Bradley.

That might help in the future, however; Sun Valley activists are still angry that they were left out of the regrade and other landfill decisions.

``I don't think the community really knew what was going on until we started to see the trash mounding up in front of us,'' Ziehler said.