SUNLAND : Waste Hauler’s Funding Boosts Canyon Cleanup

When members of the Adopt-A-Canyon program were looking for someone to help them clean up the thousands of tires and tons of scrap metal being illegally dumped in La Tuna Canyon, the last place they expected help from was a company that dumps trash.

But it was Browning-Ferris Industries, one of the Southland’s largest waste disposal firms, that came to the rescue. On Thursday, BFI and conservation groups announced a joint effort to adopt the canyon in order to restore it to its pristine state.

“This is a first,” said Jeff Gantman, manager of the Adopt-A-Canyon program. “We’ve never had a waste disposal business adopt a canyon before.”

“La Tuna Canyon is a gem of a place. I’m excited about this,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, who attended the adoption ceremony on the canyon hilltop. “It’s been a constant effort to keep this area clean. With BFI coming in, we have an ongoing commitment.”

The cleanup work will be supervised by California Environmental Projects, a nonprofit agency. The La Tuna Canyon project marks the seventh canyon adopted in the Valley since the program began in 1991, Gantman said.

BFI is contributing $5,000 toward the year-long project, enough to buy materials needed for about a dozen cleanups of the canyon.

The project area is a two-mile stretch from the Foothill Freeway south along La Tuna Canyon Road. The land is owned by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

The Los Angeles Conservation Corps will also provide about $50,000 worth of labor to clean the canyon, which has become a popular illegal dumping ground.

Thanks to its proximity to the freeway and its secluded roadway, contractors and other workers often find it easy to pull off the road to dump their trash, including paint, glass, oil and other dangerous waste.

Over the last four years, conservation corps crews and California Environmental Projects staff and volunteers have removed more than 5,000 tires, 100,000 pounds of metal and wood and odd items, including telephone booths and hundreds of women’s shoes, during occasional cleanups of La Tuna Canyon .

“This is just very callous and inexcusable,” Arnie Berghoff, director of government affairs for BFI, said of the polluters.

“Our office is about three miles away, so we’re a neighbor. This is about the worst thing you can ever do to the environment.”