Proposed Waste Sites Draw Sharp Criticism : Public works: Homeowners speak out against nomination of three locations, two of which are in the San Fernando Valley.

Infuriating nearby homeowners, city officials have nominated three more places as potential collection sites for hundreds of gallons of septic tank waste each day.

“I’m incensed that they even have us on the list,” said Jan Liptak, president of the Sun Valley Residents Assn., of the site on San Fernando Road. “Sun Valley has probably been selected because we have traditionally been the dumping ground for the city for years.”

Another suggested location, in Chatsworth near Winnetka Avenue and Nordhoff Street, is too far from the homes that generate the waste, according to Don Worsham of PRIDE, a North Valley homeowners group.

The list of sites, including a third one in East Los Angeles, was ordered by the City Council after the construction of a $2-million septic waste collection facility at the Tillman Water Reclamation plant in the Sepulveda Basin became the target for protests by residents and environmentalists.

Peter Ireland, president of the Coalition to Save Sepulveda Basin, complained that the city has not allowed local residents to participate in its decision-making process as it winnowed the list of possible sites from 70 to 19, and then to three. He said it appears that the department is bypassing residents because it is driving to a foregone conclusion: to name Tillman as the best location for the facility.

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“They’re basically saying, ‘We’re going to justify what we were doing in the first place. We’re going to open a facility in the Sepulveda Basin, but if people take us to court we’ll be able to justify it because we will have an environmental document,’ ” Ireland said.

The San Fernando Road site is in Councilman Richard Alarcon’s district, and Annette Castro, Alarcon’s chief of staff, said she viewed the department’s decision with concern.

“We are concerned and that’s why we’re going to be monitoring it,” she said. “The 7th District already takes in 80% of the city’s trash with all the dumps we’ve got.”

The city plans to hold public meetings to receive comments from members of communities near each of the sites.

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The Tillman plant was to collect septic tank waste from around the San Fernando Valley and nearby cities, then pipe it to the Hyperion Treatment Plant in Playa del Rey. The City Council belatedly required an environmental study to address those concerns, forcing the department to look for alternatives.

Some of the factors considered in drawing up the list were accessibility by truck, traffic impacts and topography, according to Chris Harris, the city’s public relations consultant for the project. Also considered were sensitive land uses such as parks, homes, schools and churches.

The three sites, which are all privately owned, will be analyzed extensively on the impacts they are likely to have on nearby traffic levels, the environment, neighboring land uses and other issues, Harris said.

Ireland said it appears the Department of Public Works is bypassing residents because it wants to justify naming Tillman as the best location for the facility.

But city officials said the opposite is true.

“This project has had plenty of (public) input,” responded J. P. Ellman, president of the Board of Public Works.

Gerald A. Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino, said the city finally appears to be on the right track after not listening to community concerns for over a year. He said he thinks the city should decide to have several sites to minimize the distances that trucks would have to travel to get to the collection facility.

Last November, the City Council decided to put off final approval of the project until the Public Works Department had completed an environmental study. The department began meeting with environmentalists and local residents in March to inform them of progress on the study, which included a search for alternative sites.

But residents staged a demonstration at Tillman on May 7, saying they had been excluded from participating in the department’s decision to narrow 70 sites to 19 sites. At a June 2 community meeting, they presented the department with an extensive list of criteria that they asked it to use on the original 70 sites, plus others that they wanted the city to consider.

Harris said the city had used the criteria to narrow down the list from 19 to the present three.

The city will hold three public hearings to get comments from the communities in which the alternative sites are located. The first will be held on Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. at Northridge Recreation Center, 18300 Lemarsh St. The second is scheduled for Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. at the Lake View Terrace Recreation Center, 11075 Foothill Blvd. The city will hold a third meeting on Oct. 24 at 5:30 p.m. at the Boyle Heights Senior Center, 2839 E. 3rd St. in Los Angeles.

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In Sun Valley, Liptak said she plans to mobilize her group’s members to protest the Sun Valley site. They will phone and write their elected officials, and express their concerns at the Lake View Terrace meeting, she said.

“We have several landfills and we’re very close to the Lopez Canyon landfill,” Liptak said. “We are an area that has been neglected when it comes to services and remembered when it comes to projects like this.”

Possible Sites for a Septic Waste Collection Facility The city has announced three alternative sites for a septic waste collection facility located, but not opened, at the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area. Public hearings will be held this month in the communities where the alternative sites are located. Potential sites: