Countywide : Landfill Developer to Help Fund Study

A firm that has proposed building a dump at Weldon Canyon agreed Tuesday to provide the funding needed to complete an environmental impact report on the project.

Officials for Waste Management Inc. told the Ventura County Board of Supervisors that they would provide funding--estimated at about $51,000--to finish additional work on the report.

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. Company officials had refused to pay the cost of the additional study, contending that it was not needed.

But Mike Williams, president of the company’s Ventura County division, said Waste Management officials decided to comply with the supervisors’ request.

“We saw that the board needed some additional information, regardless of what our feelings were,” Williams said. “I guess you could say it was a compromise to get the process moving.”

Board members said they expect to make a decision in March or April on whether to allow the company to build the dump.