Rival Paid for Study of Sunshine Canyon

A $60,000 North Valley Coalition study concluding that the controversial Sunshine Canyon Landfill might not be safe in an earthquake was paid for by giant WMX Technologies, a business competitor of Browning-Ferris Industries, which owns the dump.

The study has been used by opponents of the Granada Hills landfill, which Browning-Ferris plans to reopen on July 1.

WMX Technologies Inc., the nation’s largest waste hauler, gave the North Valley Coalition about $66,000 to pay for the report and various administrative costs, said Chuck White, director of regulatory affairs for the company.

The North Valley Coalition of Concerned Citizens, a group of homeowners and environmentalists, had cultivated a reputation as David taking on Goliath in the dump fight.

Studies by Browning-Ferris Industries, the nation’s second largest waste company, show the landfill is safe. The dump lies near the junction of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways.

The seismic study--which was conducted by an independent engineering firm--found that during a major earthquake, the liner of the landfill could fail, allowing garbage to contaminate water supplies.

A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Monday before the State Water Quality Control Board. The agency staff has already decided in favor of Browning-Ferris.

On Friday Browning-Ferris officials also claimed that WMX has lobbied city officials without following proper registration procedures. WMX denied the charge.

Because the canyon straddles the boundary between Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles, the landfill has drawn both governments into a protracted controversy: Though neighbors oppose the dump, county officials have argued that the region needs more landfill space.

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BFI plans to open the county portion of the canyon July 1 and hopes to have necessary approval to open the city side within the next several months.

The story that emerged Friday includes private detectives, conflicting seismic studies and heated rivalry between the two giant waste haulers. White of WMX said the North Valley Coalition approached his company for help.

“They wanted technical support because they felt they were being outgunned” by Browning-Ferris and its consultants, White said.

Coalition lawyer Rosemary Woodlock said the relationship began in mid-1994 after the coalition had suffered a string of losses and was going broke.

“The North Valley Coalition was absolutely on its last legs,” she said.

Woodlock said she has been aware that the 1994 engineering study was paid for by Rust Environment & Infrastructure, a subsidiary of WMX.

It is the findings--not the financier--that are important, Woodlock said.

“It made no difference to us that it was [a WMX subsidiary] as long as it was an independent engineering firm that performed the study,” she said. “This is a case where you have respected engineers and scientists reaching a conclusion. WMX had nothing to do with their conclusions.”

San Francisco-based Treadwell & Rollo Inc. Environmental & Geotechnical Consultants conducted the study. When it was released in late 1994, Browning-Ferris officials were surprised that a group as modest as the North Valley Coalition could afford the report. They hired a private investigator.

“We make no apologies,” said Arnie Berghoff, Browning-Ferris’ head of governmental affairs. “When we started hearing rumors that Waste Management was involved, we felt we owed it to our shareholders to find out if it was true . . . and to be honest, we hoped it wasn’t true.”

In an interview, Woodlock bemoaned the bad press over the study, which was disclosed in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.

“The North Valley Coalition has been fighting this fight for 20 years with no government agency to help,” Woodlock said. “And then all of a sudden, people say, ‘you are bad people.’ We had tried every avenue for 20 years.”

Woodlock said she signed a $75,000 contract with Treadwell & Rollo for the engineering report and said the North Valley Coalition plans to eventually pay the money back.

Browning-Ferris claims that WMX is particularly interested in killing Sunshine Canyon so that the larger firm can divert the county’s trash to two large--and controversial--dumps it hopes to build in remote desert regions in Southern California.

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WMX officials said they simply want Browning-Ferris to be held to the same strict seismic standards WMX has been subjected to.

“We are in direct competition with Sunshine Canyon,” said White. “It appears that they are being held to a different standard than we are and that’s incomprehensible. . . . The question that has to be asked is why are they putting a landfill in the bull’s-eye of a major earthquake zone?”

Woodlock of the North Valley Coalition said the analysis is valid, regardless of who paid for it.

“This is a pretty bad statement for society that the facts of the report don’t matter, but this other stuff does,” said Woodlock. “The truth doesn’t have anything to do with who paid for it or who we gave it to, but what the experts say.”