Portion of Dump Closed as Fumes Sicken 2 Workers

A small section of Lopez Canyon Landfill in Lake View Terrace has been closed since Wednesday when two Los Angeles sanitation workers were hospitalized after they were overcome by fumes, city officials said Friday.

Tests were being conducted to determine the source of the fumes, which were confined to an 50-by-100-foot area where a bulldozer early Wednesday accidentally unearthed a layer of garbage buried in 1982.

Officials said there was no danger to residences, which are a quarter of a mile away from the closed-off area.

Keith O’Kray, 33, of Newhall was recovering at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, where he was treated for dizziness, nausea and diarrhea, said Delwin A. Biagi, director of the city Bureau of Sanitation.

O’Kray and Carlann Paul, 29, of Los Angeles were hospitalized Wednesday after fainting when they were exposed to the unearthed material at the north end of the dump. Paul was treated and released.

‘Extremely Unusual’

“This is extremely unusual,” said Mike Miller, assistant sanitation director. “We’ve never experienced anything like this.”

Sanitation officials declined to speculate on the cause of the fumes but said small amounts of toxic substances sometimes are thrown out with household trash. The landfill receives only household trash.

Councilman Ernani Bernardi, whose district includes the landfill, said at a City Hall news conference Friday that the accident has reinforced his opposition to the proposed expansion of the dump. Lopez Canyon, the only city-owned landfill, receives about 4,000 of the 6,000 tons a day of household refuse collected by the city.

Biagi said the old garbage has been reburied. “We believe this incident was isolated,” he said. “It was very limited to a very small area. The person most affected was standing right next to the material,” he said of O’Kray.

Bernardi said he visited the landfill Friday morning after being informed about the accident late Thursday.

“While I have concern about such late notification, I believe the bureau behaved responsibly, taking action to see that the workers received proper attention, and reporting the incident to the appropriate authorities,” he said.