Planting Trees Cannot Offset Razing Oaks for Landfill, Foresters Say

An ambitious reforestation project to replace thousands of oaks that would be lost by the proposed expansion of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill cannot make up for the wholesale destruction of an oak woodland habitat, according to foresters and researchers involved in tree conservation.

Browning-Ferris Industries has proposed the tree-planting program as part of its plan to expand its landfill above Granada Hills into a 542-acre canyon that is home to more than 6,600 oaks along with other trees and wildlife.

But experts say that reforestation even on a large scale is incapable of fully offsetting the loss of habitat from razing an entire oak woodland.

“That’s a functioning biological community, with all the different kinds of plant and animal life,” said Tom Griggs, a restoration ecologist involved in reforestation projects for the Nature Conservancy. The mature woodland “that’s there today is much more complex biologically” than scattered stands of newly planted trees, Griggs said.

“They’re going to take something that’s great and replace it with something that might be,” remarked Bob Holland, a vegetation ecologist with the California Department of Fish and Game. “That seems like a pretty poor trade.”

Amid warnings by officials of a looming garbage crisis, Browning-Ferris has asked Los Angeles County for approval to extend its dump, which is nearly full, into an unspoiled branch of Sunshine Canyon that is home to deer, bobcats and birds.

About 6,650 oaks crowd the moist floor of the canyon and the cooler north-facing slopes. These trees, along with an undetermined number of sycamores, black walnuts and big cone Douglas firs, would be removed over the next 25 years to make room for 70 million tons of garbage--about the amount generated every five years in Los Angeles County.

The Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission is scheduled to vote on the dump proposal next month. At a hearing last week, the county Public Works Department urged the commission to approve the expansion plan.

Another 594 oaks would be removed later in a second dump expansion within Los Angeles city limits. Browning-Ferris has said it will seek approval for the second expansion but has not yet formally applied.

The 542-acre canyon is within a “significant ecological area,” or SEA for short, an area listed in the county general plan as unique or valuable habitat. Browning-Ferris is asking the Planning Commission to delete the proposed dump site from the significant ecological area boundaries.

The area has been nominated for inclusion in the proposed Santa Clarita Woodlands State Park, which would encompass about 6,000 acres of canyons and ridges between the Santa Susana Mountains and Towsley Canyon west of the city of Santa Clarita.

Browning-Ferris opponents, including the dump’s neighbors and North Valley Coalition members, have seized on the woodlands issue in their fight against landfill expansion.

Under the county’s oak tree ordinance, adopted in 1982, Browning-Ferris must plant two oak trees for each one it removes. For a period of two years, it also must maintain the young trees and replace the ones that die.

The company says it will exceed the requirement by planting at least 17,266 oak trees--or nearly 2 1/2 for each one it will destroy--during the next three years. Browning-Ferris also says it will maintain the trees for five years, instead of just two, and will also plant fir, walnut and other trees although not required to do so.

In a gully at the landfill, Browning-Ferris has established a nursery where thousands of tiny seedlings are sprouting in thin, tube-like pots made of paper. Although specific planting sites have not been identified, candidate areas include Van Norman Reservoir, Pyramid Lake and various county parks.

“Strong emphasis will be given to selecting sites that have potential for developing new oak woodland ecosystems or enhancing existing ecosystems,” according to the company’s draft plan. “Isolated sites cut off from other natural areas will be avoided, thereby reducing the possibility of creating ‘islands’ with low ecological value,” it says.

By the time the last of the native trees are cleared 25 years from now, the new trees “will have developed into 25-year-old, sexually mature, seed-producing trees, capable of self-perpetuation,” the company says.

Company officials said they also will reimburse the county for costs incurred in monitoring compliance with the plan.

The entire project will probably cost the company between $500,000 and $1 million, said Browning-Ferris spokesman Mark Ryavec.

In addition, the company has offered to donate its 524-acre holdings in adjacent East Canyon to the county or to the state for inclusion in the woodlands park.

“BFI is saying we’re going to do what it takes to replace that ecosystem,” said James T. Aidukas, Browning-Ferris’ regional director of environmental affairs.

But that will be impossible, say many experts, including Pam Muick, a forestry researcher at UC Berkeley and a director of the California Oak Foundation, a statewide group devoted to oak conservation.

“Are you ever really replacing what was taken away--a whole functioning ecosystem?” she asked rhetorically.

“Outplanting of trees does not replace the loss of habitat,” said Tim Thomas, a resource management specialist with the National Park Service and a member of Los Angeles County’s Sensitive Ecological Areas Technical Advisory Committee. Thomas said a key question is, “Why aren’t the trees already in the places where they want to plant? Maybe the habitat that’s there is the one that should be there, and it shouldn’t be altered to that extent.”

“Those trees are out there growing now where they are for very good ecological reasons,” said Griggs of the Nature Conservancy. “To assume that we can plant them where we desire . . . and that they will grow the same is very presumptuous.”

Mike Wilkinson, a deputy forester with the Los Angeles County Fire Department who is working with Browning-Ferris on the reforestation plan, acknowledged that there’s no way to “totally replace what’s being removed . . . We cannot reproduce totally what’s out there.”

Ralph Osterling, a consulting forester for Browning-Ferris, agreed.

“It’s not like I’m going to go down and buy a package of ecosystem seed,” he said. “It’s not that simple.”

But Osterling complained that opponents have exaggerated the uniqueness of the forest to make points against the dump. “Sunshine Canyon has been painted as the finest, the only, the grove of oaks, and it’s not,” Osterling said.

For one thing, the woodland consists of live oaks, rather than Valley or Engelmann oaks, which are more threatened varieties. And due to wildfires or other factors, the trees are mostly 25 to 65 years old, not the centuries-old oaks that have been decimated in Southern California.

Company representatives also argue that the canyon is only about 2% of the about 20,000 acres in the significant ecological area.

“I’m not belittling it,” Osterling said of the Sunshine Canyon forest. “I’m saying it’s comparable to others.”

Wilkinson agreed that Sunshine Canyon is typical of the woodlands found in the general area. “I wouldn’t consider it a unique area, but it is one of several that are similar. . . .Eventually, we’re going to come down to having one left, so we ought to be trying to preserve it as much as we can,” he said.

Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state parks agency that is trying to acquire land for the proposed Santa Clarita woodlands park, said Sunshine Canyon might not be unique, but also might not be the last part of the significant ecological area destroyed.

“What kind of guarantees do we have that taking this 2% isn’t just the start of taking out the SEA entirely?” he asked.

“Whether it is the pinnacle of that ecosystem or not, I’m not qualified to determine . . . but we don’t have any way of guaranteeing the purity of the remaining” lands, he said.

Edmiston has recommended that Browning-Ferris allocate a portion of dump revenues to acquire and donate the lands needed for the Santa Clarita Woodlands State Park.

“They’re looking all over Southern California for places to plant the trees,” Edmiston said, but “planting trees doesn’t do it. . . .Far better to take an ecosystem that already exists, literally over the hill, and protect that ecosystem.”

Asked about Edmiston’s proposal, Ryavec, the Browning-Ferris spokesman, said the firm has “received a lot of requests and they’re all being considered.”