BFI Wants to Import Ventura Waste : Environment: Company proposes transporting garbage to Sunshine Canyon Landfill, angering Valley activists.

A national waste management firm is offering to take Ventura County’s trash and dump some of it north of Granada Hills.

Browning-Ferris Industries Inc., the nation’s second-largest waste handler, has approached Ventura County officials with a plan to transport trash to three existing landfills, including Sunshine Canyon, rather than open a controversial 551-acre dump site at Weldon Canyon, near the mouth of the Ojai Valley.

BFI will present the plan this month to the Ventura County Waste Commission, an advisory group of city and county leaders.

News of the plan angered San Fernando Valley activists, who have waged a fierce legal battle to block the expansion of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill, which is located near the junction of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways.

Valley activists were surprised Friday to hear about BFI’s interest in Ventura, especially since the firm cited Los Angeles County’s mounting garbage problem to justify a Sunshine Canyon expansion.

“BFI would not dare bring up that subject to our faces,” said Terry du Soleil of the North Valley Coalition of Concerned Citizens. “The justification for Sunshine Canyon is that there is this overwhelming need for landfills.”

Rosemary Woodlock, attorney for the coalition, agreed. “They have marvelous charts down in L.A. County that say we should be standing in garbage right now.”

BFI filled up its first landfill at the site in 1992 and has been waiting for court approval to start on a 17-million-ton expansion. Construction began last week, only to be stopped by a judge’s order Tuesday.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne will decide on July 12 whether to make the order permanent or to allow the landfill operators to continue cutting down trees at the site.

Proponents of the Weldon Canyon project argue that opening a new landfill would provide a closer, cheaper site for garbage disposal.

Plans for the controversial landfill appeared dead last year, when Waste Management Inc. withdrew its proposal after years of trying to woo county supervisors.

But Chase’s Taconic Resources resurrected the proposal with a petition drive to put the matter before voters. The drive garnered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Now the Ojai City Council is preparing to file suit to stop the project, which would lie between Ojai and Ventura.

BFI officials say they hope to offer an option more palatable to Ventura officials, by shipping the trash to Sunshine Canyon Landfill and other sites outside Ventura County.