VAN NUYS : Concerns Aired Over Recycling Program

Residents and environmentalists are concerned about the city’s use of a controversial facility in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area for a debris-recycling program.

The Board of Public Works on July 7 decided to allow five public works employees to operate a debris-recycling program out of an office at a nearly complete septic waste collection facility adjacent to the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant.

Neighbors and conservationists, who believe the park should be preserved for recreational purposes, had assailed the impending opening of the dump without an environmental study, which has belatedly gotten under way.

Now, the city has decided to use the politically sensitive facility as a center from which to dispatch 80 temporary workers to earthquake-debris pickup sites. At the pickup sites, the workers will sort out recyclable wood, concrete, metal, dirt and bricks for reuse.

Ten vans will be parked at night at the facility, which is scheduled to be used for the recycling program until January.

Chris Harris, a public relations consultant for the Public Works Department, said she polled a dozen residents and environmentalists to get their views on its proposed use for the recycling program. Half said they were opposed and half accepted the use with reservations, Harris said.

Neighbors’ main concern was that the city appeared to be setting a precedent that might ultimately lead to approval of the septic waste collection facility, reported Harris, who maintains that is not the case.

“The city’s decision-makers from public works sees them as entirely different issues,” she said.

Gerald A. Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino, and Van Nuys resident Bob Garner said they told Harris they were opposed to the recycling program going into the dump’s office.

“That basin was chartered as a flood-control basin and the U.S. Congress defined it as a recreational use,” Silver said. “Then that sewage plant was brought in through the back door. Now this unsavory precedent allows the basin to be used for solid-waste management. Where will all this end?”

“They just went ahead with it because they don’t care, they don’t listen,” Garner said.

Jill Swift told Harris the use was acceptable, but only for the specified six-month period. Swift, a co-founder of the Coalition to Save Sepulveda Basin, said the public works department should have done more to publicize the proposed use, and should have held a public workshop on the issue.

“It’s a precedent that this sets, once the foot is in the door, for a land use that is not compatible with what (the basin) was designed for,” she said.