Flynn Angers Landfill Operators : Environment: County supervisor says Bailard dump has contaminated nearby ground water with vinyl chloride.

The Ventura Regional Sanitation District and Supervisor John K. Flynn escalated their long-running feud over the Bailard Landfill on Monday, with district officials claiming that Flynn sent out “wrong information and some half-truths” in a letter to his constituents.

Flynn, a longtime opponent of the landfill near Oxnard, sent letters to 400 residents during the past two months, urging them to attend a meeting today in Oxnard on a proposal to extend the landfill’s operating permit by two years.

Meanwhile, a proposed landfill that would replace Bailard met with harsh criticism at a meeting of about 40 Ojai residents Monday night.

In the letter, Flynn said he opposes the two-year extension because the landfill has contaminated nearby ground water with a “dangerously high level of vinyl chloride,” a cancer-causing chemical used to make plastics.

The sanitation district, a public agency that operates Bailard and a landfill near Fillmore, has a permit to operate the Bailard dump until late 1993.

According to a memo to county Environmental Health Manager Donald Koepp from his technical services manager, Terry Gilday, at least one monitoring well at the dump indicated that the ground water contains 15 times more vinyl chloride than the state allows.

The state limits the amount of vinyl chloride in ground water and drinking water to 2 parts per billion, according to Gilday’s memo. The level in one well was 32 parts per billion.

The memo said four other wells at the landfill had vinyl chloride levels above the state limit.

Kelly White, the district’s environmental manager, acknowledged that the chemical has been detected in testing wells at the dump but said there is little danger that the vinyl chloride will contaminate drinking water.

She accused Flynn of exaggeration and of raising unnecessary fears.

“It’s very important to note that the vinyl chlorides have been found only in the most shallow layer of water below the landfill,” White said. “This water layer has already been polluted by other sources and is only used for dust control.”

The dispute comes a month after rFlynn and two Oxnard councilmen unveiled a plan to unite the county and four western cities in operating a landfill to replace the Bailard dump.

Flynn has often characterized the district as being inefficient and wasteful.

He has also spoken out against the continued operation of Bailard, saying the dump is an eyesore and should be moved away from populated areas.

Officials of the Ventura Regional Sanitation District defend the Bailard Landfill, saying it provides a competitively priced service to more than 300,000 county residents.

In an interview on Monday, Flynn said he fears that the ground-water contamination caused by the vinyl chloride can drift away from the landfill and reach nearby drinking water.

“I’m not saying that the chloride is yet in the drinking water, but I am saying that it is in the ground water,” he said.

While the sanitation district has requested a two-year extension to give it enough time to find an alternative landfill site, Flynn said he believes that district officials want to operate the Bailard Landfill for another 20 years.

“That is their hidden agenda,” he said. “That is what they are after. That is what they have always been after.”

William Chiat, manager of the district’s Resource Planning and Recovery Department, denies Flynn’s allegation.

“The district does not in any way intend to seek a 20-year extension, as some have claimed,” he said. “In fact, the district is actively looking for a new landfill site away from significant numbers of residences.”

The meeting Monday evening at the Oak View Community Center was the first of several public hearings to review a draft environmental report for the proposed landfill on 551 acres at Weldon Canyon, about a mile east of California 33.

Residents, many of whom live within a mile of the proposed landfill, told the Ventura River Municipal Advisory Council that they oppose the dump because it would create too much traffic, noise and air pollution.

“Has anybody considered the traffic and noise we are going to get up there?” said Leo Gonzalez, a resident of the Valley Vista tract, the closest neighborhood to the proposed dump site.

“How is the community indemnified if there’s a disaster there?” said Stan Greene, president of Citizens to Preserve the Ojai.

Scott Ellison, a spokesman for the Ventura County Planning Division, answered, “I cannot guarantee to you that the landfill is risk-free.”

Waste Management of North America has proposed to operate the landfill to serve residents in western Ventura County for at least 27 years.

The Ventura River Municipal Advisory Council is a public agency that acts as an advisory board to the county Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors.

The council will meet March 25 to decide on a final recommendation.

The environmental impact study for the Weldon Canyon landfill, which was released last month, recommended that the proposed landfill be reduced in size by 68% to ease the effects on neighbors and nearby wildlife.

Due to a mix-up in the printing of meeting notices, the meeting of the Ventura River Municipal Advisory Council had been canceled by county officials last week.

However, a spokesman for Supervisor Susan K. Lacey said a deluge of telephone calls from residents interested in attending the meeting forced officials to schedule two meetings--one for Monday and one for March 25.