Merger Proposed for 2 Rubbish Agencies : Utilities: Waste Management Authority would control all countywide decisions on garbage collection and disposal.

A proposal to merge Ventura County’s two major rubbish agencies received tentative approval Thursday, when the county’s Waste Commission agreed to distribute the plan to 10 cities and the county for alteration and approval.

The proposed merger, scheduled for completion by July, is designed to end six years of political bickering and wasteful competition for control of area landfill and recycling facilities.

Managers of the county’s Solid Waste Management Department and the Ventura Regional Sanitation District have drafted a consolidation plan that they say will streamline their operations under the aegis of a new countywide Waste Management Authority.

The new waste authority--if approved by Ventura County supervisors, 10 city councils and the state Legislature--would operate as a public utility and control all countywide decisions on trash collection and disposal. The proposal, with recommended changes, will be reconsidered by the Waste Commission in January.

The authority would set garbage rates, sanction new landfills and ensure that enough trash is recycled to meet the demands of new state laws.

“The upshot is that we need to have a single agency with power,” said Maggie Erickson Kildee, a county supervisor who chairs the Waste Commission. “We’ve spent a lot of years with more than one entity trying to set policy and it hasn’t worked.”

The proposal would merge the operations of the regional sanitation district, which has 148 employees and a $34-million annual budget, with the county’s solid waste department, which has 17 employees and a $1.4-million budget.

The combined solid-waste agency would still operate the regional sanitation district’s two active landfills--Bailard near Oxnard and Toland Road east of Santa Paula. And it would maintain the sanitation district’s two closed landfills--Coastal and Santa Clara--which are near Bailard along the Santa Clara River.

A landfill near Simi Valley is owned and operated by a private company and would not be managed by the new waste authority.

Under the new waste authority, current competition by the regional sanitation district with private firms to build new landfills and recycling plants generally would be eliminated. New contracts would be open to competitive bidding by private companies.

The waste authority would not get involved in ownership or operation of the new facilities unless there was a compelling need to do so--such as preventing a monopoly on trash collection and disposal by a single private company.

“We want to keep this system as competitive as possible,” said Clint Whitney, general manager of the regional sanitation district. “You go out to bid on everything unless you can show a compelling need to do otherwise.”

Some city and county officials have said they fear that Waste Management of North America, a giant nationwide solid-waste firm, may gain near-monopolistic control over the rubbish business in the western part of the county.

And officials said Thursday that the new waste authority would have to decide whether the public should develop projects to compete with Waste Management once the Bailard landfill closes in 1993.

Waste Management operates the landfill near Simi Valley. It also has proposed a recycling plant for the west county and wants to build a landfill in Weldon Canyon north of Ventura.

The sanitation district, already following the proposed new guidelines, on Thursday abandoned its search for a site where another new west county landfill would be located.

The sanitation district also put on hold an environmental study of a $30-million recycling facility it had proposed building in Oxnard. Critics have said the project would waste taxpayers’ money because it would compete with private recyclers that do the job more efficiently.

The proposed merger is an attempt to heal a rift created in 1985. Until then, the regional sanitation district had served Ventura County and its 10 cities. But the county left the district after district officials failed to acquire a site for a new public landfill.

Moorpark and Simi Valley also left the district in 1985.

But in 1989, a new state law made cities and the county directly responsible for reducing landfill wastes, imposing a mandatory 25% reduction by 1995 and 50% by 2000. The move forced local governments to gain greater control over the recycling of wastes. Merger discussions began in earnest five months ago.

Even at Thursday’s Waste Commission meeting, however, there was a hint of disagreements that might arise as the proposed merger is discussed by city councils.

Councilman Scott Montgomery, Moorpark’s representative on the Waste Commission, said he was sure his city will not approve the proposal unless it is changed.

Montgomery said Moorpark opposes provisions that could make Moorpark and Simi Valley financially liable after five years for obligations incurred by the regional sanitation district’s four landfills. Because they are not part of the regional district, the two cities now have no liability.

“We would not support this document on that basis alone,” Montgomery said. Moorpark proposes a 10-year exemption from liability, he said.