TO HEAR IT OR NOT: $1 MILLION RIDDLE AT BRADLEY DUMP.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

SUN VALLEY - The owners of the Bradley Landfill have spent $1 million to soundproof the dump's ``green power'' generators, installing insulation and soundwalls to buffer the noise and vibrations that have annoyed neighbors for more than a year.

Waste Management officials hope the efforts will end a bitter battle with nearby residents and City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who blasted the company for not shutting down the generators while fixing the annoying noise.

Residents and city leaders will be able to hear - or not hear - the result for themselves next week, when all five landfill gas-to-energy generators are cranked up for sound-testing. Company officials ultimately want to run all the generators around the clock, generating electricity to sell to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power - enough to serve 6,000 homes and help fulfill city government's goal of buying 20 percent green power.

``We did not believe Waste Management for a long period of time was being a good neighbor in responding to the complaints,'' Greuel said. ``We will take a wait-and-see approach - to see the effect of the mitigation measures and to see if it has dramatically diminished the impact on the neighborhood.'' The city attorney is also verifying that Waste Management delivered the promised noise reduction.

Waste Management officials have maintained that the noise didn't violate city limits, but they promised to quell the hum to appease neighbors.

Last week, Waste Management Director of Projects Mike Williams surveyed the soundproofing for the first time and said he was pleasantly surprised by the results, although the company had initially balked at the long list of improvements recommended by sound consultants ATCO Noise Management Inc.

``Without removing the equipment entirely, this is the most that noise can be reduced on each component,'' Williams said. ``I personally believe people won't be able to hear anything.''

ATCO added a layer of insulation to the metal trailers holding the generators and replaced the motors with quieter models. Thick, heavy blankets were draped over equipment to dull the rumble. A large soundwall of corrugated, perforated metal sheets was erected next to the generators and dramatically muffled the noise on the community side.

All the additions were aimed at reducing tonal spikes that created that annoying noise.

``It's gone from a point where you can hear it to where you can't hear it,'' said Paul van den Camp, manager of projects and engineering at ATCO.

Some neighbors are going to hold Bradley to that claim.

``If (tonight) comes and I don't hear a thing, that's lovely. That means they corrected the problem. But less noise is not no noise,'' said Cathleen Doyle, an Allegheny Street resident who been one of the most vocal critics of Waste Management's handling of the noisy generators.

``Before it was like a jet plane, and now it's like a vacuum cleaner that has been turned on and left on.''

Doyle and her neighbors pushed city leaders to crack down on the noise, lobbing nasty e-mails to council members and Bradley managers when the generators were particularly annoying.

Despite the community complaints, the Los Angeles Police Department's noise enforcement team measured the noise levels on only one prearranged test night. Sound thresholds were violated on one out of three tests, but no citations were issued because police had asked that the generators be turned on for sampling.

Bradley managers decided to shut down the generators from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and on weekends until the soundproofing was completed, on Sept. 10.

In the meantime, Waste Management bought the $750,000 home of its most vocal critics, Darlene Williams and Sonny Tipton, who maintained that the hum and vibrations were making them ill. Williams and Tipton even bought sound-testing equipment to challenge Waste Management's assertions that the noise was within legal limits.

Worried that their health was being affected by the landfill, the couple eventually sold their Allegheny Street home for the asking price. They discovered late in the sale that the buyer, which at one point bid below the asking price because of disclosures on the landfill noise, was a subsidiary of Waste Management.

``It was so slimy, so scheming. They screwed us around. They didn't put money in the escrow until the last day before we closed,'' Tipton said of the transaction.

Waste Management officials said they did nothing wrong and purchased the house because the couple had repeatedly asked the company to buy them out.

``We used a third-party Realtor in order to make sure the transaction was a fair and reasonable one,'' said Kit Cole, Waste Management's director of community programs. ``We felt it was a win-win for them and us.''

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(1 -- 2) Insulation and soundwalls buffer noise and vibrations from ``green power'' generators at the Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley. Up close, a worker checks sound-absorbing material on a wall.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News