Supervisors Again OK Expansion of Sunshine Canyon Landfill : Environment: Earlier approval for the facility above Granada Hills, closed for nearly a year, was overturned in court. Opponents promise further legal action.

The expansion of Sunshine Canyon Landfill onto 200 acres of wooded canyon above Granada Hills was approved for a second time Tuesday by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, prompting promises of further legal action by opponents.

A February, 1991, approval had been overturned earlier this year by a Superior Court judge who found flaws in the environmental study of the expansion. Those problems were raised in a lawsuit filed against the county and landfill owners, Browning-Ferris Industries, by the city of Los Angeles and a coalition of residents and environmentalists.

Browning-Ferris representatives said they were relieved by the vote, which could eventually allow them to dispose of 17 million additional tons of trash in the Santa Susana Mountains dump.

“I see this as another step toward, hopefully, some kind of resolution,” said Dean Wise, regional director for Browning-Ferris.

But within minutes of Tuesday’s 3-1 vote, opponents vowed to continue their legal fight to block the expansion.

“It’s a real tragedy,” said Mary Edwards, secretary of the North Valley Coalition. “Of course we’re going back to court, but it just seems like rational minds could have solved this today.”

The lawsuit prompted a 71-page ruling by Judge Ronald Sohigian, which included some victories and some losses for both sides and which both sides appealed. As a result of the ruling, Browning-Ferris was required to revise the environmental impact report on the project and seek the board’s approval again.

Those revisions and the board’s approval must return to Sohigian’s courtroom before the landfill--closed for nearly a year--can reopen. Wise said preparations for accepting the additional trash would take about three months, cost the company $33 million and provide up to 300 jobs.

Edwards and city representatives said they would argue in court that the revisions did not adequately deal with questions raised by a county ecological review committee.

For instance, they said, there was no new justification for why loss of wetlands at Sunshine Canyon would be mitigated by restoration of the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena instead of improvement of a site closer to the San Fernando Valley.

They also said the environmental report revisions should have been aired at a series of public meetings, as required by state law for full environmental impact reports.

Deputy City Atty. Keith Pritsker told supervisors that the expansion is less urgent now than it may have appeared in 1991 because the trash disposal crisis has not materialized as expected.

“According to the county’s own figures, the supposed trash crisis . . . does not exist right now,” Pritsker said. “The projection is perhaps five years off.”

That argument failed to sway Sohigian. Landfill attorneys noted that the city had used the same crisis information as the foundation for extending the life of city-owned Lopez Canyon Landfill above Lake View Terrace.

On Tuesday, the no-crisis argument also failed to persuade supervisors.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who cast the lone dissenting vote, tried to have the expansion decision postponed for more public hearings. But Supervisor Ed Edelman, who gained much of Granada Hills from Antonovich nearly two years ago in a countywide reapportionment, said the board had heard all of the opposing arguments.

“I’ve heard nothing to convince me that we shouldn’t move ahead,” Edelman said.

Supervisor Gloria Molina abstained because she was not on the board at the time of the earlier approval and had been advised that she would have to review the environmental impact report before voting.