Canyon Landfill Debate Heats Up

The public debate over plans to locate garbage dumps in four rustic canyons ringing the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys promises to heat up this week at a hearing on a report that declared the canyons to be environmentally sound sites for landfills.

Anti-dump activists from both valleys, forming a united front, were circulating petitions against the landfills this weekend. And the city of Santa Clarita, in an unusual move, is offering to bus residents to the hearing in Granada Hills.

The city ran newspaper advertisements Sunday calling on residents to attend the hearing: “You don’t have to be the valley of the dumps, but we need your help!”

Opponents plan to challenge the conclusions of the environmental impact report that assesses the benefits and problems of operating landfills in the four canyons--Towsley, Elsmere, Blind and Mission-Rustic-Sullivan.

The hearing will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the John F. Kennedy High School auditorium, 11254 Gothic Ave. Another hearing will be held Wednesday, also at 7 p.m., at the headquarters of the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, 1955 Workman Mill Road in Whittier.

Sanitation officials will accept testimony on the environmental impact report, which concludes that the four canyons could be filled with trash without endangering ground water supplies.

Two other hearings on the report were held last week in Torrance and Monterey Park, cities not located near the proposed landfills.

Most other problems associated with landfills--dust, noise, odor and traffic--could be curbed or eliminated by new technologies and careful operation of the dumps, said the report, which was sponsored by the Sanitation Districts.

Mary Edwards, secretary of the North Valley Coalition, said Sunday that her group will challenge most of the report’s conclusions and stress the need for alternatives to urban landfills, such as increased recycling and hauling trash to remote desert locations by train.

Other groups planning to testify against the dumps include the Santa Clarita Valley Canyons Preservation Committee, Save Our Sylmar, and Mothers and Others Against Dumps.

Working with 21 schools in the Saugus, Newhall and Sulphur Springs elementary school districts, Santa Clarita sent 17,000 flyers home with school children last Thursday and Friday, urging their parents to attend Tuesday’s hearing, said Gail Foy, city spokeswoman.

People who wish to ride city-chartered buses to the hearing should contact City Hall, Foy said. The Santa Clarita City Council has repeatedly said the dumps in Towsley and Elsmere canyons could pollute local water tables, from which the city draws more than 50% of its water.

Blind Canyon is in the Santa Susana Mountains above Chatsworth. Mission, Rustic and Sullivan are a series of canyons west of the San Diego Freeway and below Mulholland Drive.