Countywide : Board Seeks to Speed Study of Dump Plan

Ventura County supervisors on Tuesday told the county staff to figure out what needs to be done to complete an environmental review of the proposed Weldon Canyon landfill--a move supervisors hope will expedite Waste Management’s application to operate the dump.

County officials also were told to set a deadline, possibly a date early next year, for the board to review the new environmental information. The proposed deadline and an outline of what additional environmental information is needed is to be presented to the board Sept. 15.

Supervisor John Flynn said he hopes that the board’s actions will get things moving again. “I think that the public is asking for a decision to be made on this issue,” Flynn said.

Waste Management’s proposal to build a 110-acre, $30-million landfill in a canyon north of Ventura has been on hold since April, when the board asked for revisions to a study assessing the dump’s environmental effects. The supervisors instructed county planners to consider four alternate landfill sites and to study a plan to ship county trash out of state.

But county officials said nothing has been done since then because Waste Management executives have refused to pay the estimated $150,000 cost of additional study.

After the meeting, Mike Williams, the president of Waste Management’s Ventura County Division, said he and other executives will meet with county staff members later this week to determine whether the company will finance the additional study.

“It all revolves around how much money it will cost and how much time it will take to complete,” Williams said. “The dollars matter less than the time. We have been at this for 7 1/2 years.”