Solving the Trash Crisis in Greater L.A. Area

Concerning your articles (Nov. 18), “Waste Hazards Raise Doubts Over Landfills,” and (Nov. 25), “Dumps: Contrast in Waste Disposal,” I think you will find our staff at the sanitation districts in agreement with many of the concerns expressed about some landfill operations. As in any business, there are good actors and bad actors.

Landfills in Los Angeles County are inevitably closer to homes than many of their “country cousins.” It’s all because of the huge metropolitan sprawl in which we live. Yet, recent technological advances in gas control and the reduction of other nuisances and hazards can make landfills into “good neighbors.” But the operators of the landfill must be willing to make the appropriate expenditures for all needed control measures: daily dirt cover to bury trash, nice looking landscaping on all slopes, odor-control systems, reasonable traffic patterns, control of dust and excessive noise, sea gull and litter control and other aesthetic considerations.

Recent events have shown that methane gas and leachate control systems are essential to the public’s health and safety. Finally, hazardous materials must be restricted from the landfills. We are now applying all of these techniques and technologies to the sites owned and operated by the sanitation districts.

Thanks for the positive exposure on the Puente Hills landfill. The “good” stories seem to be told so seldom.

Why should we even bother to make landfills into decent neighbors? Why don’t we just throw them out of town? Our Los Angeles metropolitan environment is so spread out that some trash would travel more than a hundred miles for disposal. That long haul could triple or quadruple all of our (your) trash fees, to say nothing about the additional air pollution. Solving the trash crisis is going to require providing metropolitan landfills that cause no nuisances, providing recycling programs to reduce the amount of material going to landfills as well as building waste-to-energy facilities that provide energy from the burning of otherwise useless trash.

So let’s straighten out the bad actors and make them good actors that neighbors can live with. Or we will all pay the increased price.

CHARLES W. CARRY

Los Angeles

Carry is chief engineer and general manager of the County Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County.