NEWS ANALYSIS : Indictments Unlikely to Derail Plans for Landfill

Despite new indictments against developers of the Weldon Canyon dump, an undercurrent of diverse forces could push the landfill toward eventual approval by the county Board of Supervisors.

Reacting to San Jose theft indictments of Waste Management of California, supervisors said in mid-July that they were more concerned than ever about the company gaining a virtual monopoly over trash dumping in Ventura County.

But last week, the supervisors rejected a “bad-boy” ordinance that could have barred Waste Management from county business. Then the supervisors set a tight schedule to reconsider the Weldon Canyon proposal, which had been stalled since April.

The turnabout suggests several factors that put Waste Management in a surprisingly strong position to operate western Ventura County’s primary landfill for at least the next 30 years.

Those factors are:

* Waste Management’s spotless nine-year record as operator of the Simi Valley Landfill, which serves the east county.

* High marks for Waste Management by county staff members who work with the company and supply the Board of Supervisors with information about it.

* The strong likelihood that a new study of Waste Management’s seven landfills statewide will give the company a clean bill of health.

* The county’s longstanding position that Weldon Canyon, which Waste Management has leased since 1985, is the best landfill site in the west county.

* The west county’s need for a new landfill, since its primary dump is scheduled to close in 18 months.

* The seven-year period it would take for another landfill to be studied and approved by the county.

* Strong lobbying of the supervisors by Ventura, Camarillo and Oxnard officials who want the board to act quickly on the Weldon Canyon issue, one way or the other.

Those factors were in play last Tuesday, when the Board of Supervisors took its first step toward what Supervisor John K. Flynn, a Waste Management supporter, and Supervisor Maria VanderKolk, a critic of the company, say will probably be construction of a dump in Weldon Canyon.

The issue centers not only on whether the rugged canyon at the mouth of the Ojai Valley is suited to be a landfill, but on whether Waste Management should own and operate it.

Flynn and VanderKolk said the board seems to be moving toward approval of a Weldon Canyon dump that is publicly owned and privately operated, though not necessarily by Waste Management.

“I’ve heard rumblings of that from a number of board members,” VanderKolk said. “That seems to be the way they want to go.”

Flynn anticipates at least a 3-2 vote in favor of a Weldon Canyon dump. He counts himself and Supervisor Vicky Howard as affirmative votes, with Supervisor Maggie Kildee providing the decisive third vote.

Howard was out of town on personal business last week, but she has said that she is leaning toward a Weldon Canyon dump. Kildee said she also tends to favor a landfill there if no fatal environmental flaw is found.

VanderKolk said she doesn’t like Weldon Canyon as a site. And Susan K. Lacey, in whose district the canyon is located, said she sees big holes in the current environmental study of the site.

Who would own and operate the dump is a more complicated matter.

Waste Management quickly negotiated a long-term lease for 500-acre Weldon Canyon in 1985, shortly after a county study designated it the prime location for a new landfill.

But the giant trash company, reeling from the recent San Jose indictments, has expressed some interest in hedging its $10-million investment by selling its canyon lease to the county.

A majority of the board has shown interest in buying the lease--if the price is right.

Flynn said he wants the county to buy the lease, then to request bids from private firms to operate the dump. Waste Management--which runs about 140 landfills in the United States and Canada--would undoubtedly be among the bidders.

VanderKolk said she doesn’t want the county to do business with Waste Management because of its history of legal misconduct. But if the board approves a Weldon Canyon dump, she said, it should also buy the lease to the canyon.

VanderKolk said she favors public ownership rather than allowing Waste Management--which also owns the Simi Valley landfill--to have a near monopoly of Ventura County landfills.

Howard, in a recent interview, said she is wary of public ownership because of the potential for unknown cleanup and monitoring costs.

“But it is very possible we will have to look at public ownership” of Weldon Canyon, Howard said. “I don’t want the county to get into a monopoly situation where Waste Management owns almost all of the landfills.”

On who would operate a Weldon Canyon dump, Flynn said he could vote for Waste Management. Howard and Kildee said they are impressed with the company’s record at the Simi Valley dump but concerned about its history of legal problems.

“People tell me that Waste Management has its best foot forward because they want another contract (from the county), and that as soon as they get it their true colors will come out,” Kildee said. “I don’t know if I believe that.”

Waste Management’s Weldon Canyon proposal may be back before the board as early as Aug. 18.

Flynn and Kildee last week directed county lawyers and administrators to meet with the company and bring back the county’s options for discussion in three weeks, although no vote is expected.

Flynn said that the county--which has directed a move toward a single countywide Waste Authority to oversee all garbage collection and disposal issues--is losing its credibility by inaction on Weldon Canyon.

Ventura Councilman Gary Tuttle said Flynn is right.

“It’s important for the Board of Supervisors to let us know where they are on Weldon Canyon so we can move forward (on related trash issues),” Tuttle said. “This whole system is in a state of stagnation.”

Tuttle noted that the west county is scheduled to lose its primary landfill, the Bailard dump near Oxnard, in December, 1993, and that residents of Ventura face greatly increased costs to haul trash unless a replacement dump or some other option is quickly approved.

Likewise, Oxnard city officials broke away from a county-led effort to build a single recycling facility this spring, saying they had grown tired of waiting for the county and other cities to collectively agree on where to build a plant to recycle county wastes and to sort refuse for transfer to a landfill.

Oxnard said it not only faces time pressures because of the closure of Bailard, where it dumps its garbage, but because of a state law that requires cities to recycle 25% of their trash by 1995.

In addition to such pressures to move forward, the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to receive in late August a new report on Waste Management’s California landfill operations and past legal problems.

Lacey, who was briefed on the preliminary report recently, said: “It was substantially a clean bill of health.”

The report, however, has already created mild controversy.

The impartiality of the Seattle law firm that wrote the report was questioned by Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury in April. The prosecutor said that San Diego County Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller had told him that the law firm had close ties to Waste Management. But neither Bradbury or Miller would elaborate.

Report author Richard Yarmuth, who also wrote a 1989 report on the trash company for the city of Seattle, has insisted that his firm has never had a relationship with Waste Management.

And Kay Martin, the county’s solid waste management director, said she hired the Seattle firm because it is widely respected and Seattle officials were pleased with its study.

She questioned whether prosecutor Miller has been objective in his report on Waste Management. And she said that she has found the company’s Simi Valley operations to be “exemplary. They’ve been a superior operator.”

At the board’s late-August meeting, supervisors are also expected to review progress on a study they ordered in April.

The board asked that four alternative landfill sites near Weldon Canyon be considered as part of Waste Management’s environmental report. They also wanted a study of a proposal to haul trash out of state by train.

County planners said last week that Waste Management, which must pay for the environmental report, has balked at paying for a study of the additional alternatives.

Lacey said Friday that no decision on Weldon Canyon can be made until those studies are done.

“The fact remains that there are real alternatives out there and (state law) is very clear that we have to deal with real alternatives in our EIR,” she said. “We have to have all the information in order to make a decision.”

That won’t happen, supervisors agreed, until the end of the year, even with the strong pressures to make a quick decision on Weldon Canyon.