WASTE DISPOSAL : State of Trash : Ventura County officials are thinking about shipping 500 tons of garbage a day to a Utah landfill.

Wow, what a concept. Leave our smog-producing cars at home, forget about the headache of traffic and commute instead by train. Why didn’t someone think of this before?

Some of us were so enthralled by the opening of Metrolink last week--and so devoid of what’s often called common sense--that we even had to be dragged out of the path of oncoming cars while trying to get a closer look.

But hey, that was probably just because of the novelty. We can’t be expected to think like people on the East Coast overnight, can we? Obviously it’s going to take a lot of practice before we can be as jaded about train travel as commuters in New York or Boston. There, commuting by rail is about as novel a concept as a cab driver with an attitude.

Then again, learning the ins and outs of East Coast thinking shouldn’t be too hard for us--especially if Ventura County officials follow some Eastern states’ example with another issue facing county residents. For years, Eastern states have trucked, shipped and railed their garbage to other states.

Last Friday, County Supervisor John K. Flynn and Oxnard Councilwoman Dorothy S. Maron flew to Carbon County, Utah, to check out the possibility of sending by train about 500 tons a day of west county garbage to a landfill that opened there on Sept. 21.

“Utah is a big state and fairly empty of people,” Maron explained on the eve of the trip. “If everything goes right and the price is right, we will have a place to put our trash.”

Maron, who also is a director with the Ventura Regional Sanitation District, said the Utah landfill wasn’t the only choice:

The Bailard Landfill in Oxnard is scheduled for closure in December, 1993, and attempts to extend the deadline have been criticized on health and environmental grounds. The County Board of Supervisors has put off deciding on the issue.

The proposed Weldon Canyon landfill north of Ventura, which has been under consideration for a mere 11 years, also has been met with heated opposition, particularly by nearby residents. In July, however, the Ventura County grand jury called Weldon Canyon “the most viable option available” and urged the Board of Supervisors to reconsider its decision to put the proposal on hold while it studied other options.

What would happen if Bailard closed, Weldon Canyon weren’t approved and Utah weren’t in the picture? Moorpark and Simi Valley residents would have a big, smelly Christmas present next December: thousands of west county garbage trucks rolling through their streets each day to the county’s only remaining landfill in Simi.

Which is clearly what makes the idea of shipping the county’s trash by train to another state so appealing.

“It’s decision avoidance,” said Moorpark Councilman Scott Montgomery, who considers the Utah idea one of the trashiest in a long time. Likewise, Montgomery said he is dead set against having garbage trucks from the West County caravaning through Moorpark.

His position makes sense: Simi Valley residents shouldn’t be punished for having dealt with their own garbage, nor should Moorpark residents bear the brunt of the west county’s trash because the supervisors are incapable of taking a stand.

“That’s one reason I went to Utah,” Flynn said after his return. “There is gridlock (on the Board). I cannot sit by and wait.”

Not that I’m unsympathetic to the supervisors’ position: I, too, have put up with a bad smell while waiting for another family member to take out the garbage.

But that doesn’t mean I dump it in someone else’s back yard if no one happens to volunteer. And becoming the first Southern California county to haul its trash on trains is not a distinction Ventura County needs to have. We are capable of dealing with our own problem.

All we need is to put into practice some other East Coast solutions while the supervisors get it together:

We could pile up the county’s garbage on a ship, send it out to sea and let it circle the Channel Islands. Of course, each supervisor would be required to take turns at the helm until a landfill site was selected.

We could emulate the man in New York City during the garbage strike a few years back, who gift--wrapped his trash in Christmas paper and left it in his unlocked car--where it was promptly stolen.

We could even pile it in different shapes and turn it into art. (“This pile is called ‘Geese Descending.’ And this one over here is ‘The Weeping Woman.’ Can you see it?”) Lord knows some New York galleries have had worse displays.

But send it by rail? I don’t think so.

On a practical level, it may look like the light at the end of the tunnel. But ethically, it’s just another oncoming train.