Firm May Try to Sell Weldon Dump Site : Environment: With its overture to supervisors, Waste Management retreats from a long-held goal of operating the landfill.

In an effort to hedge its $10-million bet on a landfill in Weldon Canyon, Waste Management of California has told Ventura County officials that it wants to discuss selling its dump site to a public agency.

James M. Jevens, project manager for Waste Management, confirmed Friday that he has notified Supervisor John K. Flynn that the trash firm may be willing to sell the lease to the rugged 500-acre canyon at the mouth of the Ojai Valley.

Jevens said he expects to make a formal presentation by mid-August to the full Board of Supervisors.

“They sit with all the cards,” he said. “We’re just at the table, taking what’s dealt to us.”

The hand of Waste Management, which has pushed its proposed Weldon Canyon dump since 1985, has been weakened in recent months by a series of controversies. Its new position represents a retreat from its primary goal of owning and operating the new landfill for trash from west Ventura County.

“It’s a kind of second consideration after the real thrust of our application,” Jevens said.

Just 10 days ago, Waste Management and eight of its officers were indicted by a Santa Clara County grand jury for allegedly cheating a rival landfill operator and the city of San Jose out of at least $850,000 over six years.

As a result, Supervisor Maria E. VanderKolk has proposed drafting a “bad boy” ordinance that would bar companies with histories of legal misconduct from doing business with the county. The issue will be debated Tuesday.

Jevens acknowledged that the indictments have hurt Waste Management’s political position in Ventura County, though its operations at the Simi Valley Landfill have been “squeaky clean” since the company bought the site in 1982.

As envisioned by Jevens, the county buyout of Waste Management’s Weldon Canyon interests would take the form of a non-hostile eminent domain proceeding. The county would condemn the dump site and pay a fair market price to its four owners, all members of the Shull Bonsall Jr. family.

The county would also reimburse Waste Management for its $10-million investment in lobbying, advertising, environmental studies and the cost of an open-ended lease that would allow landfill use for at least six decades.

Another key point of negotiation would be a provision allowing Waste Management to bid on the contract to operate the Weldon Canyon landfill, Jevens said.

“That would certainly be at the forefront of any negotiations,” he said, “because nobody operates a landfill better than us, no matter what they say.”

Waste Management, the nation’s largest trash company, manages about 140 landfills in the United States and Canada. The company owns about 80% of the landfills and operates the others in conjunction with government owners, Jevens said.

Flynn said that he would not prejudge Jevens’ proposal, reserving comment until the proposal is before the board.

“I’m not saying it will fly, but it would certainly be worth the whole board considering as an option. But there are other options. One of them may be to tell them to go away.”

Flynn said he wants the board to direct the county’s Solid Waste Department to study all options, including Jevens’ new one.

Flynn first expressed interest in public ownership of Weldon Canyon about a year ago. He recommended that the Ventura Regional Sanitation District, the county’s largest public rubbish agency, consider condemning the site.

The sanitation district studied the option but decided six months ago that condemnation would probably be a costly and protracted process. District officials have said they would be interested in condemning Weldon Canyon only if the county finds the site to be environmentally sound--a decision that’s still months away.

The most positive aspect of public ownership, Flynn said, would be an increased confidence in how the landfill would be run.

“The public would feel more comfortable, more secure,” he said.

Public ownership would also make the county--or the sanitation district--more diligent about monitoring operations, because all liability for illegal dumping or toxic hazards would be the public’s, Flynn said.

“You would have people at the gate with white coats marked ‘Environmental Health Department’ checking everything that goes in there,” the supervisor said.

The $10-million buyout of Waste Management could be financed over a five- or 10-year period by adding a surcharge to dumping fees charged to trash haulers, he said.

The county already writes stringent cancellation provisions into landfill contracts, so penalties for misconduct probably would not be enhanced by private ownership, Flynn said.

Supervisor Susan K. Lacey could not be reached for comment. The other three supervisors said they had not been contacted by the company and could not comment specifically on its proposal.

Supervisor Vicky Howard said she generally favors private ownership of landfills because of the escalating, hidden costs of cleaning them up. She cited monitoring and cleanup costs at the Santa Clara Landfill in Oxnard that have increased tenfold to $15 million in recent years.

However, Howard, VanderKolk and Supervisor Maggie Kildee said the key Weldon Canyon question is whether a landfill should be built there at all.

“This is all premature,” VanderKolk said. “Obviously, we’re not going to buy a lease from Waste Management until we know we want a landfill there. And Waste Management is not going to sell their lease to the county after we’ve approved a landfill there. So it’s kind of a Catch-22 situation.”

Jevens said he saw no problem with the county embracing Waste Management’s project as its own but approving it only if the supervisors decide it conforms with state environmental law. The county’s financial commitment through condemnation of Weldon Canyon would follow that decision, he said.

“We’re only looking for direction from the board,” he said. “We want to see if they’re interested.”

Board approval of its own Weldon Canyon project--based on Waste Management’s environmental reports--would be similar to the county’s recent approval of its own project for a new jail, Jevens said.

Waste Management was evaluating its political strength and its options locally even before the Santa Clara County theft indictments were announced July 15, prompting statements of concern by all five county supervisors.

In April, the supervisors stalled the company’s Weldon Canyon project, saying they wanted county planners to consider four alternate dump sites and to study a proposal to ship county trash out of state.

The move followed the release of a report by San Diego County Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller that said public agencies should use “extreme caution” when dealing with Waste Management Inc., the parent company of Waste Management of California.

Last September, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department found that the fast-growing rubbish company had paid $52.3 million in fines nationwide in the 1980s. The survey listed 10 criminal, 22 environmental and 23 civil antitrust actions against the company--including several for price fixing.

Waste Management officials have repeatedly said that nearly all of their legal problems have resulted from the activities of former owners of recently acquired subsidiaries. A spokesman said the San Diego report was “replete with inaccurate statements and half-truths taken out of context.”

If a Weldon Canyon project is finally rejected, as its Ojai Valley opponents advocate, officials say the west county will have to hustle to cover its landfill needs until another landfill project could work its way through environmental review in five to seven years.

Weldon Canyon has been planned as a replacement for the Bailard dump near Oxnard, which is scheduled to close in December, 1993.

Bailard accepts nearly all west county trash and nearly half of the 3,000 tons produced each day in the county.

Until a new landfill opens, west county trash could be trucked to landfills in Simi Valley and two nearby Los Angeles County locations, Chiquita Canyon, near Piru, and Calabasas.

The sanitation district also has applied to continue operating Bailard until 1997.

A possible alternative to Bailard, the Toland Road Landfill near Santa Paula, is already accepting 130 tons a day, the maximum it is allowed until 1996. Then it could increase to about 500 tons a day, operators say.

County officials are also studying a proposal to haul trash by rail to Utah, where a huge landfill is soliciting business.