Activists Decry Report on Waste Plant Sites

A public meeting sponsored by the Los Angeles City Council’s public works committee to discuss a draft environmental impact report on proposed San Fernando Valley sites for a septic waste facility showed no signs of abatement in the controversy surrounding the project.

Councilman and committee Chairman Richard Alarcon, representatives from the Los Angeles Department of Public Works and members of various community organizations bent on keeping the facility out of their neighborhoods attended the Wednesday night meeting at the East Valley Refuse Collection Yard in Sun Valley.

During the meeting, Alarcon, upset by the lack of public input on the Bureau of Sanitation’s interim plan for handling waste, called for a moratorium on the project until the issue was settled.

The draft environmental report, released in May, said that none of four proposed sites, including the $2-million Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Sepulveda Basin--completed in 1993 but never opened--would have a significant adverse impact on their surrounding areas.

Other potential sites are in Sun Valley, Glendale and Chatsworth.

While Alarcon and public works officials said at the meeting that they will wait until the final version of the environmental report is complete in September before recommending a site, community activists in attendance were less guarded.

Peter Ireland of the Coalition to Save the Sepulveda Basin, where the Tillman plant is located, vowed that his group will sue the city before allowing it to operate a waste facility in the popular recreation area.

“We completely disagree with the notion that this facility would have no impact in the Sepulveda Basin. It’s just not an honest assessment,” Ireland said.

“Say you’re having a picnic in the park. You’ll be watching these trucks filled with waste rumble up to the facility every few minutes. That’s a pretty significant impact,” Ireland said.