Panel to Study Plan to Reopen Dump for City

A Los Angeles city panel agreed Wednesday to study a plan to let Browning-Ferris Industries resume garbage dumping in the Southern Mesa area of the Sunshine Canyon after the firm offered to make the site, if reopened, available for city refuse exclusively.

The city Board of Public Works voted 3 to 0 to order its staff and the city attorney’s office to explore a Browning-Ferris request to reopen the Southern Mesa area for dumping and report its findings in two weeks.

“We’re very pleased the board has seen fit to seriously consider our offer,” said Chris Funk, attorney for Browning-Ferris, which owns the Sunshine Canyon Landfill north of Granada Hills. Funk said the plan, if accepted, would help the city deal with its landfill problems. The offer would temporarily reduce the amount of garbage dumped at the city’s Lopez Canyon Landfill.

An aide to Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the north San Fernando Valley, told the board that Bernson opposed the proposal. Bernson aide Grieg Smith said the proposal won’t pass legal muster and is an attempt to step around the city’s planning processes. Bernson has generally been in step with homeowners in the area who vehemently oppose the dump.

Sunshine has been a dump site for two decades. But disposal of garbage in the Southern Mesa was halted in January under an agreement between the city and Browning Ferris in July, 1989.

The solid waste firm still has city permits to dump at a 30-acre site north and east of the Southern Mesa. But the dumping--at a rate of 3,000 tons per day--under way in that area must stop by September, 1991.

As an inducement to consider reopening the Southern Mesa, Funk said his client would let the city dump 1,200 tons of city-collected garbage daily at that site until September, 1991.

The city has been scrambling for years to find places to dump about 6,000 tons of household garbage its crews collect daily.

The city’s major dump site, Lopez Canyon in Lake View Terrace, has been a headache for city officials. The city now seeks to expand Lopez Canyon and defend it against homeowner charges that it should be closed because of continuing problems with methane gas escaping from the landfill.

Board Commissioner Dennis Nishikawa said he and his colleagues would be remiss if they did not look at an offer that could save space at Lopez Canyon. “If we can find the right deal at the right price” the city should seriously consider it, Nishikawa said.

The city would have to pay a tipping fee to Browning-Ferris to dump at Sunshine Canyon. Funk and the city did not discuss specific prices, but the attorney told reporters his client would offer “competitive prices.” Browning-Ferris now charges tipping fees of $20 to $25 a ton at Sunshine Canyon, he said.

The Southern Mesa could handle up to 400,000 tons of additional garbage, Funk said.

But Smith told the board that it did not have jurisdiction to reopen the Southern Mesa. He said a new zoning variance is needed.

Funk also argued that as a matter of equity the city should reopen the Southern Mesa because the city has reneged on the deal of July, 1989, in which Browning-Ferris agreed to stop dumping in the Southern Mesa if it could dump elsewhere in the landfill.

A City Council panel--chaired by Bernson--voted Aug. 3 to block Browning-Ferris’ efforts to expand dumping outside the Southern Mesa area. That decision broke the deal ironed out in July, 1989, Funk said.

But Smith said the city never guaranteed Browning-Ferris that it could expand dumping outside the Southern Mesa, only that it would be allowed to pursue the city permits needed for such an expansion.