Elsmere Dump Plan Criticized for Minimum Trash Quota : Waste Management: The proposed agreement would penalize L.A. if it did not produce enough garbage. Environmentalists say that is inconsistent with state law.

A proposed agreement between the city and county of Los Angeles to jointly develop a regional garbage dump in Elsmere Canyon would impose fines on the city if it failed to deliver large volumes of trash.

Environmentalists say the fine provision in the proposed pact could discourage recycling and make it harder for the city to comply with a state law requiring sharp reductions in the volume of trash dumped in landfills.

The proposed pact, already endorsed by county supervisors, would penalize the city if less than 6,000 tons per day of trash generated within city limits are dumped in the landfill planned near the junction of the Antelope Valley and Golden State freeways east of the city of Santa Clarita.

Initially the city would be fined $1 for each ton less than that minimum, although the fine could be raised by as much as 6% per year. The fine would be paid to a joint powers authority to be set up to run the dump.

Critics say the minimum-dumping provision is inconsistent with a new state law requiring cities and counties to reduce trash dumped in landfills by 25% by the start of 1995 and by 50% by the year 2000, or face stiff penalties of up to $10,000 per day.

“That is an appalling provision,” said Rod Miller, legislative director of Californians Against Waste, a pro-recycling group based in Sacramento. “It creates an incentive for producing garbage . . . as opposed to creating an incentive for reducing garbage,” he said.

The Elsmere proposal reduces the “pressure to put forward the recycling and the waste reduction that’s so desperately needed now,” said Fritzi Bernstein of Sherman Oaks, a member of the Sierra Club and the Los Angeles County Solid Waste Management Committee.

But city officials who negotiated with the county defended the proposal, which the City Council is scheduled to consider Friday.

Deputy Mayor Mike Gage said “there is no question in the world” the city will generate at least 6,000 tons a day for Elsmere--and still meet state requirements to cut trash dumping at least 25% in the next 5 years.

Ronald Deaton, the City Council’s assistant chief legislative analyst, said he did not believe the Elsmere deal would undermine a proposed mandatory curbside recycling program being considered by the council.

“Recycling is a high priority within the city and this decision does not affect that priority,” said Deaton. “The situation is that there are not that many landfills. . . . Even if you assume substantial recycling, there still is a need to get rid of what’s left over,” he said.

The city Bureau of Sanitation currently hauls 6,000 tons per day of household trash--taking 4,000 tons to the city-owned Lopez Canyon landfill above Lakeview Terrace and dividing the remaining waste between the private Sunshine Canyon and Bradley West landfills in the San Fernando Valley, BKK’s West Covina dump and the county’s Calabasas landfill.

However, refuse hauled by the city represents but a third of the 18,000 tons per day generated within the city limits. Waste trucked by private haulers from businesses in the city would also count toward the Elsmere quota of 6,000 tons per day.

The 6,000 tons per day works out to just over 1.5 million tons per year. At $1 per ton, the maximum conceivable penalty would be $1.5 million per year.

Gage said the penalty clause would save taxpayers money because it would lower the interest rate on revenue bonds to be sold to finance development of the 190-million-ton landfill. He said the guarantee of a minimum amount of dumping would lower the risk to bondholders and thus the interest rate.

But opponents of the dump were startled by the mere mention of minimum dumping levels. Jill Klajic, a Santa Clarita resident and a member of the anti-dump Elsmere Canyon Preservation Committee, called it “really bizarre” to set a floor rather than a ceiling on dumping.

The state’s new solid-waste reduction law, authored by Assemblyman Byron D. Sher (D-Palo Alto), requires that at least 25% of all trash now going to landfills be diverted by recycling or waste reduction programs by 1995, and mandates a 50% reduction by the year 2000.

The 18,000 tons per day produced by households and businesses in Los Angeles would thus have to be cut to 9,000 tons per day in 10 years.

In order for the city to satisfy the 6,000-ton minimum at Elsmere while holding its total landfill dumping to 9,000 tons, it would have to reduce its reliance on other landfills.

City officials in 1985 inaugurated a voluntary curbside recycling program in parts of the Westside, pronounced it a smashing success, and said it could soon be expanded citywide.

Four and a half years later, the program has grown to 95,000 households, but that’s less than 15% of the 720,000 households served by the city’s Bureau of Sanitation.

Under the program, participants separate glass, metal cans, newspapers and plastic bottles from regular trash for pickup by special city trucks.

A plan being considered by the City Council would expand the program citywide during the next three years and make participation mandatory. Eventually, yard waste and mixed paper would be included among the recyclable items--with a goal of diverting about 40% of the trash now going to landfills.

The city’s investment in the program could be as much as $150 million over the next three to five years, Deaton said.

City and county officials have hailed the Elsmere dump as a key to averting a crisis stemming from dwindling landfill space.

The proposed city-county agreement, tentatively approved by county supervisors last week, would create a joint powers authority to finance and operate the dump, most of which is on Angeles National Forest land about one mile north of the Los Angeles city limit and 1 1/2 miles east of Santa Clarita.

The authority would sell $195 million in revenue bonds to acquire and develop the site, and pay off the bonds with tipping fees of roughly $20 for each ton of trash dumped.

Times staff writer Steve Padilla contributed to this story