Agency to Buy Desert Dumps for L.A. Trash

Officials decided Wednesday to spend $82 million so Los Angeles County’s trash can be hauled away by rail and dumped in the desert.

The board of directors of the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County signed agreements to purchase the Mesquite Regional Landfill in the back country of Imperial County and the Eagle Mountain Landfill in a remote area of Riverside County for $41 million apiece.

The private developers of both landfills have won all the necessary approvals to create mega-dumps in the desert after years of struggling through the permitting processes and fending off multiple environmental lawsuits.

However, the deal with the county must withstand a “due diligence” analysis--described by the districts as “much like a homeowner’s escrow”--which is expected to take several months. There also could be renewed opposition from environmentalists.

Officials say the deal is needed to solve the county’s increasingly urgent problem of where to get rid of its rubbish.

“Southern California is rapidly approaching a period when existing local landfills will not be adequate to handle the disposal of all our trash,” said Jim Stahl, chief engineer and general manager for the Sanitation Districts. “We hope that these two new sites will provide much-needed future capacity.”

The Sanitation Districts are a group of 25 independent agencies serving the waste water and solid waste management needs of about 5 million people in Los Angeles County. The districts’ service area includes 78 cities and unincorporated territory within the county. The directors who signed Wednesday’s agreement are the city mayors and the chairman of the county Board of Supervisors.

The Mesquite and Eagle Mountain facilities are key elements of the districts’ plan to haul trash to desert landfills by railroad as a long-term solution, the districts’ officials said.

A cornerstone of the transition to that arrangement is the effort to extend the operating permits for the districts’ Puente Hills Landfill, which will be partnered with a soon-to-be-constructed Materials Recovery Facility.

“We have seen cities on the Eastern Seaboard thrown into chaos when their solid-waste-management facilities closed and they had no plan for transition,” Stahl said. “We want to avoid that kind of emergency.”

Officials say the new sites in the desert could handle more than 100 years worth of trash from Los Angeles County. Landfill sites in the county are approaching capacity, although officials say the Puente Hills dump could accommodate trash for 12 to 13 more years.

The current operating permit for that landfill will expire in 2003. At that point, the districts will seek an additional 10-year operating permit for the 12,000-ton-per-day operation to complete the 20-year plan approved by the Board of Supervisors in 1993.

Officials say using the facilities in the county as long as possible will save a lot of money. Disposal costs at local landfills currently range from $18 to $35 per ton. Hauling trash by rail to distant landfills will more raise that figure substantially--to $55 to $60 per ton.

“If the Puente Hills permit is extended, it will save the businesses and residents of Los Angeles County over $1.4 billion,” Stahl said.

Thanks largely to the public’s effort at recycling, trash disposal in the county has dropped from 50,000 tons per day in the late 1980s to 36,000 tons per day.

The desert dumps could also provide a revenue stream for the sanitation districts, possibly accepting trash from other agencies.