Lopez Canyon Dump Given Another Year : Landfills: City panel approves permit to allow Lake View Terrace facility to operate into 1997. An appeal is expected.

VAN NUYS — A Los Angeles city panel Thursday approved a permit allowing the Lopez Canyon Landfill to operate for one more year longer, until February, 1997.

After four hours of testimony and deliberations, the Los Angeles Planning Commission approved a conditional-use permit for the 400-acre dump in Lake View Terrace, with commission President George Lefcoe saying that there should be at least one city-owned dump in Los Angeles. Lefcoe added that city officials, who in 1991 said the dump’s operating permit would not be extended, had made “illegal promises” to nearby homeowners.

Lawmakers and officials have no authority to exempt their decisions from future adaptation, he said, noting that “Congress may not pass laws that tie the hands of their successors.”

Residents living near the dump want it closed when its current permit expires in February. Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) and Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) have also called for the closure of the facility, which has been cited for a number of environmental violations over the years.

The discussion at the hearing centered on two main issues: whether the dump must undergo an environmental review and whether the city had an obligation to carry out the current permit’s provision that it could not be extended.

Bill Waterhouse, a lawyer with the city attorney’s office, said that the dump is exempt from having to undergo an environmental study because it is a continuing operation and the city Bureau of Sanitation, which runs the dump, is not asking to expand the facility.

“We’re very displeased,” said Woody Hastings, an environmental aide to Alarcon, in reaction to the commission’s decision. “I think that the commission president’s statements totally confirmed the claims of the community that they are dealing with the various impacts. He called them the ‘tortures of the damned.’ But they voted the other way anyway.”

The commission’s decision will likely be appealed. In that case, it would go to the City Council for a final decision.