Planners OK Bailard Landfill Operation for 3 More Years

County planners decided Thursday to keep the Bailard Landfill near Oxnard open for three more years--but only after assuring a group of neighboring Catholic nuns that operators will do a better job of reducing dust, noise and odor problems.

Six nuns from the Sisters, Servants of Mary convent--four dressed in head-to-toe black habits and two novices in white--appeared at the Ventura County Planning Commission hearing to politely ask for assurances that promises to alleviate some of the problems would be kept.

Some of the sisters, who range in age from 19 to 94, are suffering health problems they attribute to landfill dust, but have not been vocal about the landfill in the past, said Jodi Rupp, a Catholic hospital administrator who spoke on the nuns’ behalf.

“By their nature and their chosen station in life, the sisters are not complainers,” Rupp said. “But if aggressive mitigation measures are undertaken and completed on time, the sisters will not oppose the extension.”

The current permit to operate the landfill south of Gonzales Road and east of Victoria Avenue expired in December. But with the defeat last June of a proposal to open a new landfill at Weldon Canyon, the western end of the county has few other options for dumping the 1,000 tons of trash it produces each day, planners said.

The Planning Commission approved a proposal by the Ventura Regional Sanitation District to continue operating the Bailard Landfill until either May 30, 1997, the point when the landfill accumulates 3.15 billion tons of trash, or when the wall of refuse reaches 119 feet high, whichever comes first.

The decision was automatically appealed to the Board of Supervisors, which will hear the issue on March 1. If approved, the extension would next be considered by the Local Enforcement Agency, which makes recommendations to the California Integrated Waste Management Board.

Three of the commissioners voted to extend the landfill with a list of 102 strict measures to reduce impacts on the convent and neighboring communities.

But Commissioners Laura Bartels and Sue Boecker dissented.

“I can’t see extending the life of a landfill that . . . really should never have been there in the first place,” said Boecker, referring to the site near the Santa Clara River and atop a very shallow ground water basin.

“I have concerns about ground water, noise, dust and health issues,” Bartels said in her objection to the extension.

Charlotte Craven, a member of the Regional Sanitation District board, said the nuns will profit from the extension. As part of the conditions of approval, they could receive an extensive filtration system for their home at district expense.

That would not only filter out dust from the landfill, but would reduce the dust and pollution levels from surrounding farms and traffic on nearby Victoria Avenue, which would exist regardless of the landfill.

“In this case, the good of the general public has to be looked at and the needs of the sisters made secondary, although they are certainly going to be taken care of,” Craven said. “But everybody in the county produces trash and it has to go someplace.”

The 22 nuns who live at the convent are negotiating with an attorney for the district to decide how best to reduce noise, dust and smell on their property, which is about 500 feet from the landfill.

According to the Planning Commission’s conditions attached to the approval, the district has several options: install a filtration system in the convent and adjacent home, compensate the sisters for their inconvenience and health effects, buy their property and move the sisters, or temporarily relocate them.

Rupp said she did not believe the sisters would leave their property. And, she said, the district had not offered any cash compensation. Focusing on the proposal to install a filtration system, Rupp said the sisters would also like sound attenuating windows and insulation for the walls to reduce noise. Those things are up to the sisters to negotiate with the district, planners said.

“The sisters are naive in business ways,” Rupp told the commissioners. “Their focus in life is to love and care for the sick and elderly. But we believe in integrity and they promised” to be fair, she said of the district’s negotiators.

Other conditions imposed by the Planning Commission include a requirement for landfill operators to use chemical dust suppressants on all unpaved areas to reduce dust at the convent, as well as nearby River Ridge and Cypress Point housing developments and the planned high school nearby.

A sound wall has already been promised by Ventura County along Victoria Avenue to reduce noise caused by the street’s expansion. The regional district will pay for half of that project, the district’s lawyer said.

The district must also begin a new extensive public education program to reduce the estimated five tons of household hazardous waste that go into the landfill each day.

The district has agreed to aggressively implement the conditions, lawyer Mark Zirbel said.