Chiquita Canyon Landfill Ordered to Take Further Action to Address Odors After Months of No Significant Improvements

DIAMOND BAR, Calif., Aug. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD) Hearing Board issued an Order for Abatement that will require Chiquita Canyon Landfill to take additional steps to reduce odors that have been impacting the community for nearly two years.

The order includes more than two dozen conditions that will improve leachate collection, add preventative maintenance and inspections, mitigate odors associated with excavation activities, and require additional air monitoring. Conditions related to the mitigation of trash odors and the proposal to change operation hours will return to the Hearing Board on November 13^th and 14^th, 2024, for consideration. These contested conditions require an exchange of documents between the parties which will take additional time to gather, review, and evaluate.

The order was agreed upon to offer the community immediate relief and avoid delaying implementation of the vast majority of conditions. South Coast AQMD has received more than 20,000 complaints about odors from the landfill from nearby residents since January 2023.

Today's order requires Chiquita Canyon Landfill to take significant actions, including:

• Limit the size of the excavation area needed to address the ongoing elevated temperature reaction and employ additional odor mitigation measures during excavation, including applying an odor neutralizer or odor suppressant, providing notice to the community of excavation activities, performing air sampling at the excavation site, and reducing excavation activities if an odor nuisance Notice of Violation is issued.
• Collect instantaneous and integrated landfill surface samples for analysis across the Reaction Area at least three times per month, at intervals of no more than once every 7 days, and additionally across the remainder of the landfill at least four times per quarter and taking corrective actions as applicable based on the analysis.
• Expand the public notification system for exceedances of air quality standards for benzene and H2S to include five additional monitoring stations.
• Develop standard operating procedures for leachate tank operations in accordance with industry standards and best management practices to prevent leachate tank overflow, failure, and spillage in the tank farm areas, as well as conduct daily inspections of leachate tanks, tank connection ports, valves, tank hoses, and other leachate tank-related equipment.
• Install real-time remote monitoring systems for temperature at no fewer than twenty wellheads and investigate the feasibility of a remote monitoring system to measure pressure within the well.

The Chiquita Canyon Landfill is a landfill/solid waste disposal facility located at 29201 Henry Mayo Dr., in Castaic, California. This Order for Abatement was first issued by the Hearing Board in September 2023 and modified in January and April 2024. South Coast AQMD brought a Petition for an Order for Abatement to address issues relating to the facility's liquid leachate collection system and an ongoing public nuisance. In nearly a year following the issuance of the original Order of Abatement, the landfill has shown no meaningful decrease in nuisance-level odors in the impacted communities. The elevated landfill temperature is ongoing at a portion of the Chiquita Canyon Landfill and is considered a rare occurrence. Numerous experts have been retained to understand and mitigate the impacts of the elevated temperature.

Today's Order was issued by the South Coast AQMD Hearing Board. The Hearing Board is an independent panel that hears all sides of a case, weighs the evidence, and reaches a decision. The Hearing Board convened a hearing on August 17, 2024, which was reconvened on August 20, 2024, and August 27, 2024. The public was given the opportunity to testify, and evidence was received.

South Coast AQMD is the regulatory agency responsible for improving air quality for large areas of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, including the Coachella Valley. For news, air quality alerts, event updates and more, please visit us at www.aqmd.gov, download our award-winning app, or follow us on Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram.

SOURCE SOUTH COAST AQMD