Topics / ENVIRONMENT : Landfill Permit Ruled Invalid

A Superior Court Judge tentatively ruled last week that the county-issued operating permit for the Puente Hills Landfill is invalid.

But Judge Diane Wayne has so far allowed the landfill’s operator, the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, to continue accepting trash from throughout the San Gabriel Valley and the southeastern portion of the county while she further studies arguments from the district.

Wayne’s latest decision involves a group of Hacienda Heights homeowners and the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, who sued the county for allegedly approving an operating permit for the landfill last year based on inadequate environmental studies. Wayne has ruled that the studies do not adequately address the effects a proposed expansion of the landfill would have on nearby ground water.

If Wayne sticks by her tentative ruling, the Sanitation Districts will have to complete new environmental studies on the ground water issue and then again ask the County Board of Supervisors to approve a permit allowing continued operation.

The landfill’s last operating permit expired in November.

In a defeat for homeowners, Wayne ruled in October that the landfill can remain open while the facility’s operators fix the environmental studies.

Hacienda Heights homeowners and other landfill opponents have vowed to keep fighting to close the landfill. Jeffrey Dintzer, an attorney representing the homeowners and the school district, said he will be in a better position to argue for an immediate closure of the dump if Wayne stands by her tentative decision to invalidate the landfill’s operating permit.