City-County Pact on New Trash Dump in Elsmere Canyon OKd

The Los Angeles City Council has approved a complex garbage disposal agreement with the county, despite warnings from two councilmen that the contract could invite an avalanche of garbage from outside the city at the city’s Lopez Canyon landfill.

The pact creates a city-county partnership to begin preparing a huge trash dump in Elsmere Canyon, near Santa Clarita. It also prevents three scenic canyons in the Santa Monica Mountains, once listed as future garbage dumps, from becoming landfills.

BKK Inc., a private waste management firm that owns the Elsmere site, stands to earn a $125-million profit after covering its costs of buying about 2,000 acres in Elsmere Canyon, obtaining environmental clearances and preparing the site to receive garbage.

Although the agreement reflects more than a year of closed-door negotiations, it had to be voted on twice Tuesday because Councilman Gilbert Lindsay--apparently confused about what was being voted on--initially voted no, leaving it one vote short of passage.

Also voting against the plan were Councilmen Nate Holden and Ernani Bernardi, who objected to a clause that could allow the county to dump garbage in Lopez Canyon, a municipal dump above Lake View Terrace that now is reserved for city residential trash.

Asked about those concerns, Ron Deaton, the assistant chief legislative analyst who helped negotiate the agreement for the city, said any increase in the number of garbage trucks allowed to dump at Lopez Canyon each day would have to be approved by the city, the county health department and the state Integrated Waste Management Board. Four hundred trucks currently dump their loads at the city garbage dump each day.