County Fighting to Keep Oceanside Trash Out : Waste: Simi landfill is named as one of four potential dump sites. Enraged officials denounce plan, saying it would increase pollution.

A proposal by the city of Oceanside to truck trash to the Simi Valley Landfill sparked anger and disbelief among Ventura County leaders who vowed to mount a fierce battle against the plan.

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Ventura County Supervisor Vicky Howard denounced the plan at a news conference at her Simi Valley office Wednesday afternoon.

“We were blindsided,” Howard said. “Now we’re going to have to fight to keep this trash out of our county.”

A report sent by the city of Oceanside to county leaders this week named the landfill just north of Simi Valley as one of four potential dump sites.

The report also lists landfills in Bradley, Lancaster and the City of Industry as possible dump sites for nearly 300 tons of Oceanside trash a day.

Howard was joined at the conference by Simi Valley City Councilwoman Judy Mikels. “Every community has a responsibility to take care of its waste,” Mikels said. “Simi Valley should not become the dumping ground for the city of Oceanside.”

In an interview, Howard said the trash would increase pollution in smog-plagued Ventura County. She also charged Simi Valley landfill operator Waste Management with misleading the county into believing Oceanside’s trash would be shipped to Utah.

Howard said she will ask the Board of Supervisors to demand that the city of Oceanside conduct a full environmental impact report to assess the pollution the trash trucks could generate in Ventura County.

The Oceanside City Council will consider the Waste Management proposal at a Sept. 23 meeting.

Waste Management spokesman Greg Loughnane said it did not occur to his company to alert Ventura County of the Oceanside plan because under the proposed seven-year contract, trash would not start coming to Simi Valley for at least two years.

Loughnane said Simi Valley is one of several possible dump sites being considered for the Oceanside trash.

“Certainly if Simi Valley was the only possibility we would have been talking to them,” Loughnane said. “As it is now, there is no guarantee that any of this trash is going to end up in Simi Valley.”

Howard and other city and county officials have long opposed any proposal to bring outside trash to the Simi Valley Landfill.

That stance has led to clashes with Waste Management. In recent years, the amount of trash flowing into the Simi Valley dump has fallen off, and the company has sought other sources of trash to keep the landfill profitable.

As part of this strategy, Waste Management last fall announced plans to bid on a contract to haul trash from Oceanside and other San Diego County cities.

In January, a Utah rail hauler outbid Waste Management for the right to handle Oceanside’s trash. Howard said she and other county leaders took that agreement as an assurance that the trash would not end up in the Simi dump.

But the rail carrier ran into technical problems and early this summer Waste Management returned, offering the city a cheaper rate, said Dana Whitson, Oceanside deputy city manager.

“We got a better deal from Waste Management,” Whitson said.

Waste Management has been plagued with trash trouble in Ventura County for years.

After battling for more than a decade to open a landfill at Weldon Canyon between Ojai and Ventura, the company recently agreed to sell the lease on the property to San Diego-based Taconic Resources, which has resumed the struggle to open a dump at the site.

John Nava, a board member of the Coalition to Stop Weldon Canyon Dump, said the concerns about the Simi Valley Landfill reaffirmed his group’s opposition to building another dump in the county.

“When the owner of the dump is a company, they need to make a profit, and if that means getting trash from the outside, so be it,” Nava said. “This gives us a clear warning of what we can expect if we build another dump.”