Landfill Foes Join to Urge Trash Trains : Waste: Activists embrace the plan to send garbage to the desert as refuse haulers worry about the closure of a county dump.

Anti-dump activists from the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys formed a united front Wednesday to fight proposed new landfills in the region, urging that Los Angeles County’s garbage instead be shipped by train to the desert.

Some even offered to support stations for garbage trains in their neighborhoods instead of dumps.

At the same time, private trash haulers in Los Angeles expressed worries about the impact of a proposal that would ban them from the Calabasas Landfill.

Some haulers predicted the ban, proposed by Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich on Tuesday, would force them to raise their rates and possibly put smaller hauling companies out of business.

The meeting of activists in Santa Clarita brought together the Santa Clarita Valley Canyons Preservation Committee, Santa Clarita Civic Assn., Save Our Sylmar, North Valley Coalition from Granada Hills and Communities United for Safe Trash Management from Sylmar and Lake View Terrace.

The groups have traditionally acted independently, each waging its own battle against proposed or existing landfills in their own back yards--Lopez Canyon above Lake View Terrace, Sunshine Canyon above Granada Hills and Towsley and Elsmere canyons in the Santa Clarita Valley.

The groups must band together if they are to influence policy makers such as the Board of Supervisors, said Mary Edwards of the North Valley Coalition. “They won’t listen to us as little groups,” Edwards said of the supervisors. “They might if we unite.”

The activists said their best hope of foiling plans for new landfills is to offer better alternatives, such as rail haul.

Members of Save Our Sylmar and the North Valley Coalition said they would be willing to allow transfer stations in their neighborhoods, where trash would be loaded onto trains that would carry the garbage to remote dump sites proposed in Riverside or San Bernardino counties.

Private trash haulers, meanwhile, wondered what they would do if the Board of Supervisors approves Antonovich’s proposal to place the Calabasas Landfill off-limits to trash generated in the city of Los Angeles.

Antonovich’s proposal came one day after the private operators of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill cut back the daily amount of garbage dumped there from 3,000 tons to 700 tons a day.

Executives of Browning-Ferris Industries, the dump’s owner, said they were forced to scale back operations at Sunshine Canyon because the city of Los Angeles has refused to allow the landfill to expand.

County planners have given preliminary approval to expansion of the portion of the dump--which straddles the city limit--that lies in county territory, and the county wants to see the city agree to an expansion on its side of the line.

An aide to Antonovich had said Tuesday that the proposed ban was partly prompted by the failure of Los Angeles city officials to let Sunshine Canyon expand. But on Wednesday the supervisor’s spokesman, Dawson Oppenheimer, said Antonovich proposed the ban to preserve landfill space for communities west of the San Fernando Valley.

“It is not in retaliation to anything,” Oppenheimer said of the proposed ban.

As an alternative to Sunshine Canyon, some waste haulers, such as Sarian and Sons Disposal of Sun Valley, had planned on lugging loads to the Calabasas Landfill. Now that option may disappear.

“So where are you supposed to put your L.A. trash?” said Dave Hammer, general manager of Sarian and Sons. “Where the hell is it going to go?”

Kevin Cooper, general manager of A-1 Disposal, said the proposed ban will force private haulers serving the San Fernando Valley into more remote or expensive locations, such as Chiquita Landfill near Val Verde or Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley.

“The options are slowly being whittled away,” Cooper said. “The only alternative is to go farther and charge higher rates. The consumer is the one who is going to take it in the neck in the end.”