City to Study Trash Options

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved spending up to $100,000 to study alternatives to dumping its trash in the Sunshine Canyon Landfill when the contract expires in 2006.

The landfill is expanding into the north end of the city, in part to handle the 4,000 tons of garbage Los Angeles generates daily.

Mayor James K. Hahn and Councilman Greig Smith have called on the city to become landfill-free, and the study will look at options that include hauling trash to remote desert landfills and burning it to create energy.

“We are going to hire a consultant to come in and bring to the council a roadmap for the next 20 years of where we need to be as a city on these landfill issues, primarily alternatives to get out of landfills,” Smith said.

Smith and other city officials recently traveled to Europe to look at anaerobic digestion plants, which generate methane from waste to fuel electricity generators.

The study of long-term alternatives was also backed by City Administrative Officer William Fujioka and Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton, who recommended in a report to the council that the study should also look at the fees charged the public and whether they should be increased.

“We are at a point where the city needs to develop a more definitive plan of action for our long-term disposal needs,” Fujioka and Deaton said in the report backing the study.

They said that ending trash disposal at Sunshine Canyon could increase city dumping costs by $6 million to $16 million annually and would probably not halt the expansion of the landfill into Granada Hills because operator Browning-Ferris Industries has other cities and customers that need its landfill.

Indeed, Browning-Ferris spokesman Arnie Berghoff confirmed Wednesday that other cities would step in if Los Angeles stops dumping.

“The reality is there is a massive shortage of landfill capacity in Los Angeles County,” Berghoff said.

Berghoff also said city officials are underestimating the cost of trucking trash elsewhere, but Smith said he believes Deaton and Fujioka overestimated the cost.

Smith said bids from companies that are offering alternatives to Sunshine Canyon include some that would not cost the city any additional money or would even reduce the cost.