SIGNING OF PARKS BILL SIDETRACKS ELSMERE CANYON LANDFILL PLANS.

Byline: Sonya Ross Associated Press 

President Clinton signed a popular parks bill into law Tuesday, praising the legislation as the type of cooperative effort he hopes will continue to spring from the new Congress.

Aside from expanding and making boundary adjustments in scores of parks and ensuring preservation of the Presidio in San Francisco, the law places a big roadblock in front of earlier plans to establish a dump in Elsmere Canyon north of Sylmar.

Clinton signed the Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Management Act of 1996 in an Oval Office ceremony attended by more than 20 members of Congress who helped steer the legislation to passage one month before the election.

``I hope we can see more legislation like this over the next four years,'' Clinton said. ``We said we were going to put our national treasures beyond partisan politics. I ask Congress to continue to work with me in the same spirit.''

The new parks law authorizes dozens of land swaps and creates new heritage areas, historic trails and scenic rivers in 41 states.

It switches management of the Presidio, a 1,400-acre former Army base in San Francisco, from the U.S. Park Service to a nonprofit trust established by the government.

Locally, the bill contains a provision that prevents landfill operator Browning-Ferris Industries from removing Elsmere Canyon from the Angeles National Forest in exchange for privately held land on the edge of the forest. The dump - which would have been the largest in the state - was planned southeast of the junction of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways.

Officials of Browning-Ferris Industries, which recently bought dump operator BKK Corp.'s remaining 1,200 acres outside the forest, have said they have no immediate plans for the property.

The fight against the proposed landfill began in 1989, prodded by residents who collected 15,000 letters opposing the project. Thousands of people attended public hearings and lobbied federal officials against the dump. They supported their battle partially by selling T-shirts, bumper stickers and literature. And the city of Santa Clarita spent more than $1 million lobbying against the dump proposal.

The overall legislation, Clinton said, cements the promise that ``we will be good stewards of the land God has given us.'' Vice President Al Gore echoed the sentiment, saying ``we must leave this Earth for our children not just in as good shape as we found it, but better.''

The new law also helps New York and New Jersey purchase 17,500 acres of the Sterling Forest, which environmentalists feared otherwise might be developed. And it creates the first protected tall-grass prairie in Kansas, and establishes a historic trail commemorating the 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Ala.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who as a student activist was severely beaten during the Selma march, was among those watching Clinton sign the bill.

Tuesday's ceremony was the first formal bill signing by Clinton since he won re-election a week ago. On Friday the president is scheduled to depart for Hawaii, where he'll spend three nights before making state visits to Australia and Thailand and attending a Pacific summit in the Philippines.