Homeowners File $50-Million Suit Over Old Dump Site : Rolling Hills Estates: Eleven residents claim that toxic wastes are buried near their homes and that the result is depressed property values.

Eleven Rolling Hills Estates homeowners have filed a $50-million suit against the city and the county Sanitation Districts, alleging that an old garbage dump underlying their property contains toxic wastes.

In the suit, filed last week, the homeowners charge that the city and the sanitation agency are responsible for an erosion of property values caused by sinking back yards and noxious fumes--problems, they claim, caused by the dump. They also assert that the former landfill poses health hazards, a charge that sanitation officials deny.

“I can’t sell my ($850,000) house with a problem like this,” said Stan Willis, a resident of Moccasin Lane for two decades who is taking part in the suit. The sinking land behind his house is cracked and barren. “Nothing will grow back there now,” he said.

No one knows for sure what was dumped in the Hawthorne Canyon Landfill and then covered a quarter of a century ago, but the homeowners and state toxic substance control experts say the old dump could contain toxic wastes.

The dump site parallels Hawthorne Boulevard near Palos Verdes Drive North. Sanitation crews used the dump in 1968 during building of a city storm drain system and the Moccasin Lane subdivision, records show.

The large, upscale homes on Moccasin Lane all have back yards extending over the earthen cap that covers the landfill. The yards began to crack and sink in the 1980s as wastes decomposed, and noxious gas fouled the air, homeowners say.

The canyon dump and an adjacent landfill, the larger Palos Verdes Landfill, were operated and then covered by the sanitation districts. The city granted the districts permission to use the canyon as a dump, records show.

State experts contend that hazardous wastes from the Palos Verdes Landfill may have trickled into the Hawthorne Canyon dump. Last summer, they ordered the sanitation districts to drill core samples to see if there are any toxic substances under the back yards.

So far, the agency has refused to comply. It argues there is nothing underground but the usual municipal trash and contends that this type of waste poses no health hazard. The agency asserts that it is natural for such dump sites to emit foul-smelling methane gas.

“Our position hasn’t changed,” sanitation districts spokesman John Gulledge said. “We still say there’s nothing there but municipal wastes. There’s no evidence the two sites are linked,” he said.

State officials argue that there is no way to know that without taking samples to determine what is underground. They also warn they would take enforcement action if the sanitation agency doesn’t comply.

“We’re the enforcement agency in this matter,” said Daniel Weingarten, staff attorney for the state toxics agency. He added, “If need be, we’ll take this to the mat.”