Bkk Corp

The BKK Corp., which hopes to open a regional garbage dump in a mountain canyon near Santa Clarita, will pay $304,500 in fines for various violations involving the closure of its hazardous waste landfill in West Covina, state officials announced Friday. The fine was imposed after a team of inspectors from the state Department of Toxic Substances Control found 23 violations of state hazardous waste laws and regulations at the landfill in October, 1990, officials said.

The BKK landfill did not cause long-term health problems in babies born to people living around the landfill's controversial hazardous waste dumping ground, according to a state study released Tuesday. The study by the state Department of Health Services looked at babies born from 1978 to 1986 to families in neighborhoods three miles around the hazardous waste site, located in the low-lying San Jose Hills.

The Environmental Protection Agency has fined the BKK Corp. $21,000 for filing an "inadequate" plan to control toxic waste at the West Covina dump and for six other alleged violations of federal law. The regulatory agency also charged that BKK failed to submit a plan for monitoring hazardous material over the next 30 years and that the firm refused to provide audited statements of its assets and a financial guarantee that it could pay for long-term safety precautions at the landfill.

Federal officials Tuesday proposed installing 57 new wells to extract contaminated ground water from the BKK Landfill in an effort to prevent pollution from spreading beneath the dump. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plan is designed to contain a polluted plume of water that is not used as a drinking water source.

In a preliminary accord reached Wednesday night, BKK Corp. agreed to sell Los Angeles County and city its land holdings at Elsmere Canyon north of Sylmar, moving the site a step closer to development as a public landfill, County Supervisor Deane Dana said.

A onetime lobbyist for the proposed developer of a landfill in Elsmere Canyon is under investigation by the FBI as part of the independent counsel's probe of former U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Espy, sources close to the inquiry said Wednesday. As recently as last week, FBI agents have requested documents connected with the Elsmere Canyon project from the U.S. Forest Service, Torrance-based waste hauler BKK Corp. and Rep. Howard P.

In a deal between two waste-disposal giants, Browning-Ferris Industries said Wednesday it will purchase the site of the proposed Elsmere Canyon landfill in the Santa Clarita Valley from BKK Corp. Although the impact on the local trash wars was uncertain, it appears the deal may delay development of the controversial Elsmere dump east of Santa Clarita, while increasing pressure to reopen BFI's mothballed Sunshine Canyon Landfill north of Granada Hills.

More than 500 people who lived near the BKK Landfill in West Covina before it was closed to toxic waste in 1984 are sharing in one of the largest settlements ever obtained in a toxic-waste case--$43 million, lawyers disclosed Wednesday. A suit filed in 1980 against BKK Corp. and W&A Builders Inc., which built homes near the dump, was settled in 1986. The amount of money involved, however, was not disclosed until documents were unsealed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Attorney Herbert Hafif, who represents 508 residents, said his clients are receiving $7 million from BKK Corp.

More than 500 people who lived near the BKK landfill when it was taking toxic waste will share in a $43-million settlement, lawyers disclosed for the first time Wednesday. Settlement of the lawsuit against BKK Corp. was reached in 1986, but the amounts being paid were not revealed until documents were unsealed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. It has long been known, however, that the amount would be about $40 million, because residents had said that is what they had been told.

The City of West Covina, BKK Corp. and five regulatory agencies have reached agreement on a comprehensive plan to stop odors, ground water contamination and methane gas leaks at the BKK landfill. Attorneys will ask Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Norman Epstein on Monday to accept the agreement as a stipulated preliminary injunction, settling a lawsuit brought by West Covina against BKK and the regulatory agencies. City Atty.

In a move that is being viewed as a deathblow to the proposed Elsmere Canyon Landfill, the U.S. Senate on Thursday adopted a provision in its federal parks legislation that effectively blocks development of the contentious 720-acre dump. The measure, surreptitiously inserted by Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), effectively kills the project that opponents argued would have spoiled the area's pristine wilderness.

After years of litigation, the city of West Covina and BKK Corp. have finally settled their differences. BKK, which plans to close its 583-acre landfill in September, agreed to pay $10 million in back taxes to the city for business license fees. The corporation will also pay $750,000 for landscaping on the outside slopes of a nearby BKK hazardous waste site that is already closed, City Manager James E. Starbird said.

Intent on pushing its proposed landfill at Elsmere Canyon, trash hauler BKK Corp. has waged an aggressive, behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign in recent years that has hired on a former senator, two former members of the House of Representatives, a congressman's wife and the former college roommate of a former secretary of agriculture. BKK's cast of powerhouse lobbyists demonstrates just how serious the company considers the proposed 190-million-ton landfill, which requires approval by the U.S.

A onetime lobbyist for the proposed developer of a landfill in Elsmere Canyon is under investigation by the FBI as part of the independent counsel's probe of former U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Espy, sources close to the inquiry said Wednesday. As recently as last week, FBI agents have requested documents connected with the Elsmere Canyon project from the U.S. Forest Service, Torrance-based waste hauler BKK Corp. and Rep. Howard P.

Anti-dump activists turned out for a public meeting Thursday night, criticizing county trash officials who recently concluded that a dump in Elsmere Canyon is one of the best options for trash disposal into the next century. Residents attending a meeting at Valencia High School attacked a preliminary report highlighting the proposed 190-million-ton facility that would abut and consume part of Angeles National Forest on the edge of Santa Clarita.

Anti-dump activists turned out for a public meeting in Santa Clarita on Thursday night, criticizing Los Angeles County trash officials who recently concluded that a dump in Elsmere Canyon is one of the best options for trash disposal into the next century. Residents attending a meeting at Valencia High School attacked a preliminary report highlighting the proposed 190-million-ton facility that would abut and consume part of the Angeles National Forest on the edge of Santa Clarita.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has dismissed criminal charges against BKK Corp. and two of its retired employees who were accused of conspiring with a South El Monte contractor to shortchange the state in the cleanup a Lynwood dump that was in the path of the Century Freeway. Judge Judith C. Chirlin ordered the contractor, Andrew Papac & Sons, owners Andrew Papac and his son, Andrew G. Papac, and their business associate, William Dunlap, to stand trial Oct.

BKK Corp., stepping up its legal battle to keep its landfill open, has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city of West Covina, city officials and community activists alleging that they are harassing the operator to force it to close the dump. The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S.

Santa Clarita city officials pleaded with a U.S. Senate subcommittee Thursday to block the creation of a massive landfill in Elsmere Canyon, appealing for federal intervention to preserve national park land on the perimeter of the proposed dump. An entourage of civic leaders, led by U.S. Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) and Santa Clarita Mayor Carl Boyer, testified in Washington D.C.

As West Covina and BKK Corp. formally agreed Thursday to shut down by mid-September the controversial landfill that takes up to a quarter of the county's trash, officials and waste haulers began the search for a new dumping ground for as much as 12,000 tons of garbage daily. Los Angeles County officials say they believe there is enough short-term capacity at dumps in the region to accommodate the trucks soon to be turned away from BKK's 583-acre dump.