Valleywide : Waste Site Hearing Touches Off Clash

Community activists and city officials clashed on the usefulness of a public hearing held this week to determine where to place a needed but unpopular septic waste facility.

City administrators said the workshop format of Tuesday’s hearing at the Airtel Plaza Hotel in Van Nuys allowed for more public reaction than normally observed at such hearings. About 120 people attended the hearing.

“Some people told us last night that they appreciated the format because they could never go up in front of a group and speak,” said Linda Reponen of the city Bureau of Engineering, the project manager for an environmental study of potential sites, which was the subject of the hearing.

But homeowner leaders charged that the hearing’s format was intentionally designed to squelch the free exchange of ideas and weaken opposition to the facility.

“There was never an opportunity for the public to speak in a public forum,” said Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino. Tony Alcala of Sun Valley and John Chady of Canoga Park shared Silver’s views. All advocated placing the facility at a site other than where they live.

The city is trying to decide where to place a septic waste collection facility, which would take septic waste trucked in from the San Fernando Valley and surrounding cities to be discharged into the sewer system.

A preliminary environmental study released Jan. 4 has identified five alternative plans that involve individual sites and combinations of sites in Van Nuys, Chatsworth, Sun Valley and a Los Angeles site near Glendale.

At Tuesday’s hearing, people were able to submit their views to a court reporter on a one-on-one basis and view a videotape on the environmental study. They could also examine maps and photographs.

In other developments, Peter Ireland, president of the Coalition to Save Sepulveda Basin, said if the city ultimately decides to open the Van Nuys site next to the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, he and other community leaders will file a lawsuit to stop it.