The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to approve a plan today to turn the Puente Hills Landfill—the largest municipal dump in the US, when it was active—into an enormous park, reports KPCC. Supervisors are expected to OK spending $5 million to build a visitor center at the foot of the landfill and to greenlight a master plan "that will eventually result in a park on the 117 acres at the peak of Puente Hills."
The landfill, located near where the 60 and 605 freeways meet, spans about one square mile and includes a "trash hill" that’s 500 feet tall. It’s been out-of-service for three years now.
That towering trash heap is actually an asset in this case, says Paul Prestia, a division engineer at the Los Angeles County Sanitation District. From that height, she says, there's "a great panoramic view of the San Gabriel Valley."
If a park atop a landfill sounds weird, it shouldn’t. The landfill is sheathed in a special cover that doesn’t allow methane gas to seep out, so the trash pile doesn’t smell. And apparently there’s already a public trail to the top of the trash hill.
Update: The County Board of Supervisors approved the master plan for the park.
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