PALOS VERDES LANDFILL

BY JOAN DAVIDSON

Co-Chair, South Bay Open Space Task Force

The Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) has recently concluded a Five Year Review of the Palos Verdes Landfill.

The landfill was operational 1952-1980, covering approximately 300 acres, and includes the burial of over 47 billion pounds of hazardous wastes. The landfill accepted 40% of the hazardous wastes for the Los Angeles region.

A prior mining site, the landfill does not have a liner, nor an EPA approved cap, and daily accepted the co-disposal of toxic liquids into solid wastes. Today, the EPA would not allow any of the above conditions. Landfills today must have liners, caps and may not accept toxic liquids into a solid waste landfill. In 1993 the DTSC was assigned as the lead state agency over the Palos Verdes Landfill that had been placed onto the State Priority List. Previously the landfill had been placed onto the Cortese list that identifies the most toxic landfills.

On April 27th a community meeting was held at the South Coast Botanic Gardens in Palos Verdes to discuss the recent publication of the DTSC Five Year Review of the landfill.

The Five Year Review was scheduled to be published in September 2004 and has been greatly delayed. The review was published in March 2009 claiming the landfill has met the remediation plan. Residents turned out to question the state agency and its findings in this review. Community members greatly differed with these presented conclusions at the meeting and asked for additional information to be released to the public along with additional testing.

The Palos Verdes Landfill is a unique waste site situated in a very densely populated neighborhood bordering Torrance and Palos Verdes. Some residents are within a few feet of the landfill border. Residents who live within the perimeter of the landfill are greatly concerned about gases migrating into their homes.

A main concern regarding the review was that it was conducted by the owner of the landfill, the Los Angeles County Sanitation District. Many residents want an independent review to be conducted. Such issues as proper air modeling and sufficient testing and characterization of the landfill gas migration were questioned. Due to the close proximity of the homes to the landfill many residents have asked for indoor air testing. The DTSC has refused to conduct indoor air testing, even though Senator Dianne Feinstein has written to the DTSC requesting that the indoor air tests be conducted. In addition, the DTSC did not include in this review the current approved project for the landfill gas to energy center to be demolished, and replaced with an 80% flare system.

The Task Force questions the wisdom of this project.

The LACSD also has refused to conduct an Environmental Impact