OJAI : Deadline Extended for Dump Review

County officials have granted a 45-day extension for review of the draft environmental impact report for the proposed Weldon Canyon landfill.

Responding to pleas from environmentalists and the county’s Solid Waste Commission, Tom Berg, director of the county’s Resource Management Agency, decided Wednesday to extend the deadline for public review from April 9 to May 24.

“It took them three years to prepare it and all we got was 60 days,” said Ruth Shimer of the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County, one group that asked county officials for moretime to review the 1,400-page document.

The first public hearing on the document before the county’s Environmental Report Review Committee will also be delayed from April 10 to May 29, said Scott Ellison, county planner.

Waste Management of California has proposed building a landfill in Weldon Canyon south of Ojai to serve western Ventura County.

The company has no objections to the delay, said project manager James M. Jevens.

“Although we had no say in the matter, we want a good EIR and we welcome the challenge,” Jevens said. By January, he said, Waste Management had spent $1.69 million on studies and fees to process the report.

The report will be the subject of a number of meetings.

Ellison will give a presentation on the report to the Ventura River Valley Municipal Advisory Council at 7:30 p.m. Monday in the Oak View Community Center.

On Tuesday, he will give the Ojai City Council an overview of the report at the council’s regular meeting in City Hall. The council will take no action at that time, officials said.

The Ventura County Solid Waste Commission will hold a study session on the report at 8:30 a.m. April 3 in the County Government Center’s Hall of Justice executive dining room.