Opponents Call Dump a Threat to Water Supply

In the latest salvo in the battle over reopening Sunshine Canyon landfill, an environmental group said Monday that a recent state study shows the landfill could collapse in a large earthquake, and possibly pollute the city’s water supply.

But Browning-Ferris Industries, which owns the dump, and the state Department of Water Resources, the agency conducting the study, immediately brushed aside the group’s charges.

“The report did not say it was not a safe project,” said Rodney Nelson, the chief of the landfill unit of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, which is monitoring the design of the dump. “We had some concerns about a few things, which is in no way unusual, and BFI has until Feb. 1 to respond.”

Said BFI spokesman Arnie Berghoff: “This process is part of normal procedure. There are no problems.”

But at a morning news conference across the Golden State Freeway from the proposed landfill, representatives from the North Valley Coalition--joined by Supervisor Mike Antonovich and City Councilman Hal Bernson--said that if the dump fails, 70% of the local drinking water would be threatened.

“This,” said Wayde Hunter, president of the North Valley Coalition, “is a disaster waiting to happen.”

The long-debated landfill is planned for an area in the Santa Susana Mountains above Granada Hills, near the interchange of the Antelope Valley and Golden State freeways.

Because the 215-acre landfill straddles the boundary between the city of Los Angeles and unincorporated county property, the decade-old fight between BFI and the North Valley Coalition has drawn both governments into the controversy.

The city closed its portion of the dump in 1991, the same year the county gave BFI the right to develop a new landfill wholly within the county’s jurisdiction.

Earlier this month--and after years of lawsuits and counter lawsuits--the city and county reached an agreement. As part of the settlement, BFI will be allowed to open the landfill on county property this summer, and will also apply to reopen the dump on the city side later this year.

The county portion, which has already been approved by the Board of Supervisors, could begin operations as early as July 1, said Berghoff.

On Monday, the North Valley Coalition said the stability of the landfill would be threatened in the event of a major earthquake because of the steep angle of its walls. The group also alleged that the liner could break, threatening water supplies, and the cover--which would be placed on top of the dump once it is closed--could also fail.

“Seventy percent of all of L.A.’s water is treated downstream from Sunshine Canyon,” said Hunter. “If the liner fails, it will produce toxic runoff which will affect everyone, not just the people who live in this area.”

Just a few hundred yards from the planned dump, group members pointed out, is the freeway interchange that failed during the 1994 Northridge quake.

“The ground shook in ways we hadn’t seen before,” said Antonovich, a longtime opponent of the dump. “Directly behind us, Oat Mountain rose 15 inches. Unfortunately, the majority of the Board of Supervisors, despite credible evidence of a faulty liner,” approved the project.

Nelson, of the regional water quality control board, said BFI is scheduled to submit the results of a test that showed how the liner would perform if “saturated,” and whether the dump’s walls need to be so steep.

Nelson said he expected no problems that would delay construction.

“They have been very cooperative,” he said.