Protesters Fail to Sway Santa Clarita to Take Landfill Stand

The Santa Clarita City Council, under mounting political pressure from its own citizens and from residents of the neighboring San Fernando Valley, was urged Tuesday night to oppose plans to build or expand two dumps near the young city.

But the council rebuffed both groups, saying it needed more time to study the proposals before it takes a stand on proposals to build a dump in Elsmere Canyon east of Newhall and expand the Sunshine Canyon dump above Granada Hills.

Members of the Elsmere Canyon Preservation Committee submitted to the council petitions bearing more than 1,600 signatures, urging the city to fight the Elsmere proposal. About 50 protesters, many of them mothers with children, paraded in front of City Hall before the council met, carrying placards denouncing the proposed dump.

“The citizens of the Santa Clarita Valley would like to know why we have to settle for a garbage dump in Elsmere Canyon as the answer to other cities’ trash problems,” Marsha McLean, committee co-chairman, told the council.

Santa Clarita City Council members have expressed reservations in the past about a dump in Elsmere Canyon but have declined to officially oppose it, saying they must first review the project’s environmental impact report.

The environmental impact report, expected to be completed by December, was commissioned by the BKK Corp., a Torrance-based landfill firm that hopes to open the Elsmere dump by 1991.

The city and county of Los Angeles also view Elsmere as a prime spot for a landfill. City and county sanitation officials estimate that a dump in Elsmere, about two miles northeast of the Golden State-Antelope Valley freeway interchange, could take in trash for 30 to 50 years.

Mayor Jan Heidt promised the preservation committee that the council will study BKK’s proposal carefully, assuring them that she is privately opposed to the Elsmere Canyon dump but feels the need to wait for the environmental impact report.

Meanwhile, members of the North Valley Coalition--mostly residents of the north-central San Fernando Valley--asked the council to oppose plans by Browning-Ferris Industries to expand the Sunshine Canyon dump. Browning-Ferris had sought the council’s backing a year ago, suggesting that an expanded dump in Sunshine Canyon would lessen the need for a dump in Elsmere Canyon.

The City Council did not endorse the Sunshine Canyon expansion, but it did agree to submit to Los Angeles County planners an analysis of the proposal by its own staff. The city staff produced 15 pages of questions and concerns about the dump but did not reject the landfill.

The Sunshine expansion would destroy 8,000 oak trees, but Browning-Ferris has pledged to plant 17,000 oaks near the canyon and in other portions of the county. Santa Clarita city officials suggested that the City Council ask Browning-Ferris to plant 5,000 of the new trees in Santa Clarita.

That suggestion, which the council said it would take up later, distressed members of the North Valley Coalition.

Mary Edwards of Granada Hills showed the council large color photographs of statuesque oaks, saying they would be lost if the Sunshine Canyon dump is expanded. “There is no way you can mitigate the loss of 8,000 oaks with 17,000 oaks in 2-inch pots,” she said.