Public Gets 2nd Chance to Dump on Landfills : Sanitation districts: So many people turned out to criticize an environmental impact report that another hearing will be scheduled.

County sanitation officials, surprised by the large number of people who wanted to testify at a hearing this week during which four proposed garbage dumps were repeatedly denounced, on Wednesday hurried to arrange an additional opportunity for public comments.

The extra hearing probably will be held the week of Oct. 28, although a final date has not been set, said Joe Haworth, a spokesman for the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County.

It will be the fifth hearing on the landfills, which the county wants to build in mountain canyons ringing the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys.

About 80 people in an audience of nearly 200 asked to testify during the 3 1/2-hour hearing Tuesday at John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills. About 30 speakers, all opposed to the proposed landfills, spoke.

Haworth said anyone who signed an attendance sheet at the hearing would be notified by mail of the new meeting. The public information office of the Whittier-based Sanitation Districts will answer inquiries, he said.

Tuesday’s hearing was held to collect public comments on an environmental impact report that assesses plans to open landfills in Towsley and Elsmere canyons, both in the Santa Clarita Valley; Blind Canyon in the Santa Susana Mountains above Chatsworth; and a site known as Mission-Rustic-Sullivan in the Santa Monica Mountains south of Encino.

The report said that filling the canyons with millions of tons of trash would not threaten underground water supplies because the canyons are geologically stable and impermeable liners would be installed to prevent seepage.

The speakers at Tuesday’s hearing, however, challenged dozens of conclusions in the report, from its geological findings to its description of plants and animals found in the canyons. Several speakers, including Santa Clarita Mayor Jo Anne Darcy, pressed the Sanitation Districts to explain how the four sites were selected from 101 possible landfill locations briefly mentioned in the report.

The speakers represented groups from the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Simi valleys.