New Report Urges Planning Panel to Expand Dump : Sunshine Canyon: At a public hearing, a county official says expansion would be the first step in a long-range solution to the landfill shortage.

The Los Angeles County Public Works Department urged county planners Wednesday to allow a proposed expansion of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill north of Granada Hills to meet the need for future dump space.

But Browning Ferris Industries’ plan to expand the 230-acre dump onto 542 acres it owns in unincorporated county territory continued to meet with strong opposition from nearby residents and environmentalists at a public hearing conducted by the county Regional Planning Commission. The North Valley Coalition, which is leading the opposition, proposed instead that the dump be closed as soon as a proposed landfill in nearby Elsmere Canyon can be opened.

About 150 people attended the more than three-hour hearing, the second held by the commission on the matter.

Several speakers said expansion of the dump would destroy wildlife, oak trees and other forest land and could pollute ground water in the San Fernando Valley.

Commissioners postponed consideration of the expansion until Feb. 22 and set a deadline of 5 p.m. Feb. 2 for opponents and proponents to submit written arguments.

Jack R. Michael, the county’s special assistant for waste management programs, who presented a report on behalf of the public works department, urged the planning commission to approve the proposed Sunshine Canyon expansion as the initial step in a long-range solution to the county’s dump space shortage.

If the shortage is to be solved, it is essential that Sunshine Canyon and other dumps be permitted to operate at their “maximum, environmentally acceptable capacity,” Michael said.

The county’s landfills will be over capacity by 6,400 tons per day by 1991 if no additional recycling programs are implemented, no existing landfills expanded and no new landfills established, said Michael, who acknowledged that he was presenting a worst-case scenario.

Even if trash reduction and recycling goals mandated in a state law enacted last year are achieved, Michael said, the landfills’ capacity could be exceeded by 30,000 tons per day by the year 2000 without expansion of existing sites and establishment of new landfills.

The report also called for establishment of a dump in Elsmere Canyon by 1995 through a joint powers agreement between the county and city of Los Angeles. The city and county reached tentative accord on operating a dump in that location last month but an environmental impact report on the proposal is not due until next spring.

Elsmere Canyon is north of Sylmar and east of Sunshine Canyon, which led Mary Edwards of the North Valley Coalition to tell planning commissioners, “We can’t have two mega-dumps in our back yard.”

In what he called a compromise, Antonio Cosby-Rossmann, the coalition’s attorney, proposed that Sunshine Canyon not be shut down on Sept. 21, 1991, when its permit from the city of Los Angeles is scheduled to expire, but be allowed to operate and expand within Los Angeles city boundaries until the Elsmere Canyon facility is opened.

Then, he said, the Sunshine Canyon facility should be closed entirely.

Browning-Ferris spokesman Mark Ryavec said his company should be allowed to expand because it has a safe and appropriate site that is already committed to use as a garbage site.

John C. (Chris) Funk, attorney for Browning-Ferris, said the company has presented a new plan that would require destroying 1,363 fewer oak trees for the expansion. The company originally proposed to remove 8,000 oak trees for the expansion project.

He said the company has a nursery at the site that has already started to grow the 17,000 oak trees to be planted to replace those removed for the expansion.

But the homeowners and environmentalists, including representatives of Citizens for a Better Environment, described the new trees as seedlings and argued that it would be many years before they would replace adult trees between 65 and 100 years old.

In other testimony, Gilbert Benjamin, president of the Granada Hills Chamber of Commerce, said he does not want the community to be known as the home of the world’s largest trash dump.

Speaking in favor of the expansion were representatives of the Canoga Park, Reseda and Sun Valley chambers of commerce.

“Everybody seems to think we have a trash fairy out there like we have a tooth fairy,” said Alan Roberts of the Reseda chamber. “Well, that’s not so.”

In answer to residents’ concerns about saving the oak trees, Roberts said: “I haven’t heard one of these people from Granada Hills apologize for removing the orange groves that were there before their homes.”