OJAI : Appeal Protests Report on Landfill

Two environmental groups and the city of Ojai have filed an appeal protesting Ventura County’s approval of an environmental study of a proposed landfill in Weldon Canyon three miles north of Ventura.

Contending that more work should have been done before the county Environmental Report Review Committee approved the study Feb. 19, the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County, Citizens to Preserve the Ojai and the city of Ojai asked the Ventura County Board of Supervisors Monday to reject the landfill report.

“The report doesn’t include a lot of things that it should,” said coalition member Cynthia Leake. “They’ve spent a lot of time on this, but there are still things to be studied.”

All three groups contend that the report failed to address sufficiently the possibility that dust raised by plowing and digging at the landfill site could cause an outbreak of Valley fever, a disease spread by spores in airborne dust.

Review committee members have argued that their approval was not an endorsement of the environmental study, but merely a finding that it was technically adequate, officials said.

Jim Jevens, manager of the Weldon Canyon project for Waste Management of North America, said the environmental groups’ appeals are invalid.

“The study is as thorough and complete a document as has ever been reviewed in Ventura County,” Jevens said of the $1-million study.

The Board of Supervisors has 30 days from March 2, when the appeal was filed, to set a date for a public hearing to determine whether the report should be amended.