County’s Plan Is Garbage : Trash Disposal: If something isn’t done quickly, Los Angeles city residents will end up making unjustified concessions.

The County of Los Angeles, which has historically embraced some of the nation’s sharpest land swindles, is out to break new ground in its legacy of shady real-estate deals.

Purportedly acting to provide a badly needed garbage facility, the Board of Supervisors has secretly approved a plan that will enrich the county bureaucracy and a high-powered developer at the expense of Los Angeles city taxpayers and Santa Monica Mountains park users. Because the City Council tentatively approved the plan with little public notice or review, aggressive citizen action is needed to keep it from becoming reality.

The supervisors’ plan begins with a worthy enough goal: to construct a readily accessible, environmentally sound garbage-disposal facility that can meet countywide needs for half a century. The location, Elsmere Canyon, lies in the San Gabriel Mountains just north of the city-county line and along the Antelope Valley Freeway. Virtually all the experts agree that Elsmere is the appropriate place for the county’s major disposal facility.

Rather than seize with principle this opportunity to meet public needs, the supervisors’ program threatens establishment of the dump by attaching illegal and unwise conditions to Elsmere’s use by all county residents. Like an entrepreneur in control of a hot property, the county sees Elsmere as an opportunity to maximize profits, broaden its options for future trash disposal and realize revenge against an old adversary, the city. Taking advantage of its public power to condemn the Elsmere land, the county seeks to extort unjustified concessions from city residents.

In particular, the supervisors demand as a condition of dumping Los Angeles city garbage in Elsmere Canyon:

--That dumping in Lopez Canyon be expanded and continued until 1996, even though the site violates state standards;

--That dumping in Sunshine Canyon also be expanded, even though the operation violates a 25-year-old city permit;

--That the city pay an extra “tribute” of at least $1 dollar a ton for dumping at Elsmere that can be increased at the sole discretion of the county and its Sanitation District;

--That Rustic and Sullivan canyons in the Santa Monica Mountains be sold at market value, rather than released to park agencies at acquisition costs, as state law requires. (The sites are no longer suitable for dumping but held in trust by the county Sanitation District for public recreation.)

--That Mission Canyon, county-owned under the same trusteeship as Rustic and Sullivan canyons, not be released for recreational use but be sold to developer Ray Watt, providing necessary access to his ambitious and adjacent development.

Extortion of the city is the only glue holding together the Elsmere plan. County supervisors have been angry ever since the city closed the county’s Mission Canyon garbage site in 1981. The city used its land-use authority to end dumping at the facility, located within city limits, citing harm done to surrounding neighbors. In response, the county has prohibited the city from dumping garbage at county sites open to other municipalities.

This policy of blackmail, designed to force the city to place new garbage dumps within its borders, regardless of the environmental consequences, did not work so long as existing city facilities had not reached capacity. But with Lopez and Sunshine canyons nearing their limits, the extortion becomes more effective.

Alternative solutions exist that would create a garbage facility for all county residents, expand recreational opportunities in the Santa Monica Mountains and end existing conflicts over garbage dumping next to established neighborhoods:

--The Elsmere facility, designed to prevent harm to existing neighbors, should be established as soon as possible;

--Elsmere should be open at uniform fees to all residents;

--Garbage dumping in Lopez and Sunshine canyons should terminate when current permits expire;

--Rustic, Sullivan and Mission canyons should be transferred to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for recreation at acquisition cost;

--Elsmere’s uniform disposal fees should be used to reimburse the county and its Sanitation District for the transfer of the canyons, because all county residents will benefit from this new parkland;

--The state attorney general should immediately prosecute county officials who maintain the policy of extortion.

Now that the county’s secretly formulated plan has been exposed, citizens and their representatives at City Hall can force a publicly acceptable substitute. As shown by its vote last month to require separation of household trash, the City Council can make sound policy. Los Angeles citizens and their council must undo the county’s attempted swindle of public resources.