Weldon Canyon Landfill Could Import Trash, Report Warns : Disposal: The county may not be able to prohibit outside dumping if the operation changes hands.

Backers of a proposed landfill at Weldon Canyon cannot guarantee the dump will never accept out-of-county trash if voters approve its construction next March, a county report has concluded.

Representatives of Taconic Resources, the San Diego investment firm behind the dump proposal, have repeatedly said they are willing to sign an agreement prohibiting the importation of trash as a condition of approval or support for the dump.

But county officials said such an agreement would not be binding if Taconic turns around and sells its development rights after winning voter approval for its project.

“No assurance can be made that [the pledge] will be legally effective against future owners and operators,” Chief Administrative Officer Lin Koester wrote in a report to the Board of Supervisors.

Although a majority of the board has expressed opposition to a new dump, Taconic has collected enough voter signatures to place a landfill initiative on the spring ballot.

The prospect of importing trash has been a major concern of west county cities opposed to the Weldon Canyon dump, which would replace Bailard Landfill in Oxnard when it closes next July. Opponents have argued that the operator will have to accept trash from Los Angeles County or elsewhere in order to make its project economically viable.

Richard Chase, general partner of Taconic, said Thursday that Taconic has always maintained that it will not be the actual developer or operator of the landfill. Nevertheless, he said, Taconic officials believe that an agreement with the county would still be applicable to whoever runs the dump.

“We can bind the operator to whatever we agree to,” Chase said. “There’s no doubt in my mind we can bind them.”

Koester was out of town and could not be reached for comment Thursday.

But Thomas Berg, director of the county’s Resource Management Agency, said that county attorneys are not convinced that an agreement can be struck with Taconic that would also apply to a third party.

“There is a little fuzziness in the law,” he said. “County counsel cannot say with assurance that there is a legal mechanism to put such an agreement in place.”

Koester’s report also raises questions about whether there would be enough west county trash to support a landfill at Weldon Canyon, which would be located between Ventura and Ojai.

The report states that Waste Management, the operator of the Simi Valley Landfill, has offered to slash its dumping fees if it can get additional trash from the west county cities of Camarillo and Ventura.

The operator of the Toland Landfill near Santa Paula is also seeking to expand its dump to accept more west county trash. In addition, Koester’s report notes that the county and its 10 cities are stepping up recycling efforts in order to meet a statewide mandate to reduce trash flow into landfills.

As a result, “development of the [Weldon Canyon] site will rely on not only the success of the ballot initiative, but ultimately upon business decisions by private parties that the facility can indeed attract sufficient tonnages to ensure a return on investment,” the report concludes.

But Chase said that Taconic, which has already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on its dump proposal, can make money even with reduced tonnage.

“There are a lot of landfills that make it on 400 or 500 tons a day,” he said.

Regardless of Koester’s findings, Berg said that supervisors will have little choice Tuesday but to place the Weldon Canyon initiative on the March 26 ballot because Taconic has met all of the legal requirements.

Supervisor Susan Lacey has proposed that the board on Tuesday draft a rebuttal argument to the landfill initiative that would be placed on the same ballot.

Meanwhile, county officials said that placing the Weldon Canyon initiative and an unrelated countywide referendum sponsored by Community Memorial Hospital on the ballot will cost taxpayers about $60,000 for printing and other costs. Community Memorial is seeking to block construction of a new $51-million outpatient wing at the county hospital, which it believes will be used to compete for private patients.