Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Landfill Will Try to Use Eased Rules to Reopen : Government: Sunshine Canyon operators hope an emergency post-quake permit plan will apply to them.

As Los Angeles city officials acted Thursday to reduce the paperwork needed to rebuild after the quake, operators of the controversial Sunshine Canyon Landfill near Granada Hills said they will try to use the eased requirements to reopen their dump.

Representatives of Browning-Ferris Industries Inc., which operated the landfill until it was closed in 1991 after city permits expired, also asked the Planning Commission to strike a key provision of a proposed law that calls for public hearings on projects that are likely to create public opposition.

The commission had expressed unanimous approval Thursday of a proposal to give city administrators power to grant almost instantaneous approval to requests for land-use permits--which are needed to rebuild damaged homes and businesses--in order to hasten quake recovery.

The City Council is likely to consider the proposed law next week.

Browning-Ferris officials told the commission Thursday that the company hopes the emergency law will also apply to them, saying that would allow them to temporarily open a section of the landfill to accept earthquake debris, such as rubble from the collapsed Antelope Valley and Santa Monica freeways.

In arguing against the public hearing requirement, Sharon Rubalcava, an attorney for Browning-Ferris, said such hearings would only delay the earthquake cleanup.

“Don’t let it get mired in a public dispute,” she said. “Politics shouldn’t be allowed to bog down the process.”

But the commission disagreed, saying the public hearing provision was needed to give residents affected by the dump a chance to comment.

The 200-acre landfill, which straddles the city-county boundary in the Santa Susana Mountains above Granada Hills, has been a battleground between Browning-Ferris and environmentalists and city officials who want to keep the dump from expanding.

The portion of the landfill under city jurisdiction was closed in September, 1991, but the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors had granted Browning-Ferris permission in February, 1991, to expand the landfill on property wholly located in territory under the county’s jurisdiction.

The city and residents near the landfill subsequently sued the county, contending that the environmental effects of the expansion plan had not been adequately scrutinized. A judge halted the landfill expansion pending the outcome of court actions and subsequent public hearings.

Councilman Hal Bernson, who worked for years to close the portion of Sunshine Canyon in his district, said he will oppose an attempt by Browning-Ferris to open the landfill as an earthquake remedy measure, saying, “It’s just another way for them to try to get back in.”

He said other landfills, such as Lopez Canyon in Lake View Terrace, can handle the earthquake debris.

Mary Edwards, a spokeswoman for the North Valley Coalition of Concerned Citizens, a group that has battled to keep the landfill from expanding, called the proposed reopening of Sunshine Canyon “ridiculous.”

She said trucks taking trash to the landfill would have to use San Fernando Road, the main surface street detour for motorists driving to and from Santa Clarita Valley around the collapsed Antelope Valley Freeway, thus adding to growing congestion there.

“It’s preposterous,” she said.