Meeting to Focus on Septic Waste Facilities

The Los Angeles City Council’s public works committee will hold a public meeting tonight to discuss a recently completed environmental impact report identifying possible sites for septic waste facilities in the San Fernando Valley.

In January, after almost two years of public participation and city research, the Department of Public Works released a draft environmental impact report identifying three alternative sites to a collection facility built at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in the Sepulveda Basin but never opened.

The $2-million Tillman plant, which is still being considered along with sites in Sun Valley, Glendale and Chatsworth, was put on hold soon after it was completed in 1993 when neighbors and environmentalists successfully argued that an environmental impact report should be completed first.

The most recent version of the report, released by the city in May, found that neither the Tillman plant nor any of the other possible sites would have a significant adverse impact on their surrounding areas. Community groups fighting the Tillman plant previously described it as a “potential environmental nightmare.”

Councilman Richard Alarcon, the chairman of the public works committee and whose district includes the Sun Valley site, has said that he favors opening the Tillman facility to make use of the city money already invested there.

The city, in accordance with federal guidelines, is looking for ways to centralize existing waste dumping that is now scattered at six sites.

Tonight’s public meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the East Valley Refuse Collection Yard, 9701 San Fernando Road in Sun Valley.