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Conservancy Trying to Buy Parcels in Towsley Canyon : Environment: Sanitation officials envision a landfill in Towsley Canyon. Others see the canyon as the centerpiece of the Santa Clarita Woodlands State Park.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, criticized recently for trying to block acquisition of land for a dump in Elsmere Canyon, is trying to buy property in another Santa Clarita Valley canyon under consideration as a landfill site.

At issue is Towsley Canyon, the scenic entrance to a pristine woodland west of Santa Clarita. Environmentalists hail the area as a unique collection of forests, meadows and waterfalls more reminiscent of Northern California than Greater Los Angeles.

Sanitation officials, who say Towsley Canyon could hold up to 235 million tons of garbage, have obtained options to buy 760 acres in the canyon. Environmentalists say the 3,000-acre canyon would be the centerpiece of the proposed 6,000-acre Santa Clarita Woodlands State Park.

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Joseph Edmiston, executive director of the conservancy, said the agency is negotiating with landowners to purchase property in Towsley Canyon. “We are assiduously putting together a package of options . . . working with as many consentual landowners as we can,” he said.

Edmiston said Wednesday that it will be politically difficult to open a dump in Towsley Canyon because of its nearness to two other major dump sites. Los Angeles city and county officials are working on a tentative agreement to operate a dump in Elsmere Canyon, east of Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley Freeway. Plans to expand the dump in nearby Sunshine Canyon make a dump in Towsley less likely, he said.

“I don’t think Towsley is a really serious contender” as a dump site, he said, “and I’m about as landfill-paranoid as anyone.”

But Steve Maguin, head of solid waste management for the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, said Towsley is still a serious candidate for a dump. The sanitation districts is negotiating with landowners to obtain options on most land in the canyon, he said.

“We plan to tie up the entire area,” Maguin said.

As for a dump in Elsmere Canyon, “it’s an important step forward, but it is not the total solution” to the county’s mounting garbage crisis, he said.

Last month, the conservancy was criticized by county supervisors and Los Angeles city officials after secretly allying itself with a landfill developer in an effort to acquire three canyons in the Santa Monica Mountains for parkland.

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BKK Corp., which wanted to open a dump in Elsmere, said it would deed its Elsmere holdings to the conservancy, a public agency. That move would have prevented Los Angeles County from condemning the property because one public agency cannot condemn land held by another. With control of Elsmere, the conservancy would have had leverage to secure the canyons in the Santa Monicas for parks.

Under the proposed agreement, the conservancy eventually would have returned Elsmere to BKK control, thus allowing the Torrance-based company to avoid county interference and to continue its landfill plans. But the deal fell through after Los Angeles County offered BKK more money for its interests, $125 million, and the company agreed to sell.

On Wednesday, Maguin said that he was not aware of the conservancy’s efforts in Towsley and that it was too soon to predict how the sanitation districts would respond, if at all. But he said the conservancy’s interest in Towsley Canyon probably will drive up land prices.

Edmiston made the same complaint about the sanitation districts. The county “has been offering what we think are exorbitant amounts of money for these properties. Nobody wants to commit at a lower level,” he said.

The land inside the proposed state park is held by a variety of owners, from families who have occupied the land for generations to Chevron Oil Co.

Among the property studied by the conservancy is 1,200 acres owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management, a portion of which lies outside the canyon, Edmiston said.

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The conservancy hopes to purchase land in the proposed state park with about $1.7 million made available through recent legislation by state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), the first $500,000 of which will be available in January. Another bill by Davis directed the state Department of Parks and Recreation to assess whether the Santa Clarita Woodlands is suitable for a park.

The Santa Clarita Woodlands State Park would receive at least $10 million through the California Wildlife Protection Initiative, which environmentalists hope to place on the statewide ballot next June.

The county’s land options in Towsley Canyon were obtained a year ago from Ash Inc., a Simi Valley developer that stands to make more than $22 million in tipping fees if a dump is opened in Towsley.

Albert Howell, Ash Inc. president, said his company bought options on the 760 acres in 1988. The company relinquished the options after the county agreed to pay Ash 11 cents for every ton of refuse dumped in Towsley. Ash would make a profit only if the landfill is opened, Howell said.

Howell said his company is no longer looking for other land options in the area because he, like Edmiston, believes political pressure will block a landfill in Towsley Canyon.

Times staff writer Myron Levin contributed to this story.

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