District Acts to Cut Fees at Bailard Dump : Trash: The decision and a commission’s vote to keep the landfill open longer come amid sagging business and a bleak outlook.

Raising hopes that trash fees could be lowered for west Ventura County residents, two trash agencies took steps Thursday to make the Bailard Landfill cheaper to use and longer-lived.

The agency that runs Bailard, the county’s largest landfill, sought Thursday to shore up sagging business there by voting tentatively to reduce dumping fees by 25%--a savings officials believe could be passed on to trash customers.

The Ventura Regional Sanitation District approved the first reading of an ordinance that would cut the fee trash haulers pay to dump at Bailard from $44.50 per ton--among the highest in Ventura County and neighboring communities--to $33.50 per ton.

Also on Thursday, the Ventura County Waste Commission approved a resolution backing the sanitation district’s bid for state and county permission to keep Bailard open 3 1/2 years past its previous Dec. 7 closure deadline.

Both measures came at a time when the county’s future ability to take out its trash is looking more bleak and expensive.

Earlier this year, the County Board of Supervisors shot down a 15-year-old bid to build a new county landfill in Weldon Canyon, amid heavy lobbying by dump opponents in and around neighboring Ojai.

Trash officials predicted this week that even if Bailard is kept open 3 1/2 more years, there is only landfill space in Ventura County for another 15 years worth of trash, and that public pressure will forbid another landfill to be built in the county.

And the county’s cities are scrambling to meet state requirements that they cut their landfill use 25% by 1995.

Lori Norton, the principal analyst for the sanitation district, said all the county’s cities have full discretion on how to spend their share of the $11-per-ton savings, and could pass the savings on to trash customers if they choose.

Alex Fiore, a sanitation district commissioner and Thousand Oaks City Council member, applauded the cut, saying the cities should be responsible for programs such as disposing of household hazardous waste and trash from community cleanups that the district once handled.

Ventura trash coordinator Steve Chase said Ventura officials have not decided how to allocate the savings. But they must weigh potential cuts in trash customers’ pickup fees against the cost of subsidizing citywide recycling programs to meet the 1995 trash-reduction deadline.

“If the law requires me to recycle . . . and the community requires me to dispose of waste from community cleanups, I can violate the law, I can find a cheaper way to do business or I can simply pick up and duplicate the systems” being cut by the district, Chase said.

Ventura officials, he said, “are willing to use the savings to continue and enhance our programs.”

In recent weeks, district officials have been negotiating with county planners on guidelines for keeping the landfill open until May, 1997.

Clint Whitney, general manager of the sanitation district, said he hopes the extension permit will go before the Ventura County Planning Commission in December, that the commission will recommend approval and that the Board of Supervisors will approve it in January. The Dec. 7 deadline has been suspended while the permit application is being reviewed, he said.

Whitney and other officials predict the extension will be granted and that the lower dumping fee will bring back business to Bailard that was lost in recent years to cheaper landfills nearby.

The district achieved the fee cut in two ways: The district cut some services and greatly decreased the amount of money it is setting aside for the closure and post-closure upkeep of Bailard and Coastal landfills--now that officials say those projects are properly funded.

If the measure is given final approval Dec. 2, the sanitation district would end special programs such as trash education in schools and free disposal of household chemicals and trash from volunteer beach cleanup days.

The price cut also could force some cities to do without those services if they choose not to spend their savings on setting up such services locally.

The $11-per-ton savings would apply to the 1 million tons of trash that sanitation district officials predict will be dumped into Bailard Landfill if its closure date is extended to May, 1997.

“In effect, we’re giving $11 million back to the cities,” Whitney said.

The decision was partly market-driven, officials said. The proposed $33.50 fee is meant to compete with fees of $35.95 at Simi Valley Landfill and $27 per ton at Chiquito Canyon, near Santa Clarita in Los Angeles County.

While trash agencies such as Los Angeles County’s can spread out one landfill’s excessive costs over several sites, costs for Bailard must be reduced at Bailard, he said.

“We have a limited ability to raise revenue,” Whitney said. “We have tried to get down to the cheapest price possible.”