Neighbors Oppose Landfill’s Rebirth

Neighbors of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill near Granada Hills often liken the massive dump to the classic horror-movie monster that takes a beating but just won’t die.

After years of complaining about dust, trash, noise and odors generated by the dump, neighbors celebrated with pinatas and candles when a 230-acre portion of the landfill within the city closed in 1991.

But the celebration was short-lived. Two years later, the county Board of Supervisors gave the final go-ahead to open a 215-acre portion of the dump on adjacent land within the county.”It never dies, it just keeps coming,” said Mary Edwards, a longtime dump opponent who lives about a quarter of a mile from the landfill. “It’s like a Hydra. It has all these heads and it won’t die.”

After years of legal battles with neighbors, environmentalists and the city of Los Angeles, Sunshine Canyon is coming back to life today when its gates swing open to accept about 6,000 tons of waste per day.

For Browning-Ferris Industries, the Houston-based waste management firm that operates the dump, the reopening represents a sweet victory at the end of a long, expensive battle.

For neighbors, the battle has been lost but not the war.

“We are not going to lie down and die,” said Edwards, who vows to continue fighting the landfill operations.

The dump’s rebirth is also indicative of how strong the demand for landfill space still is in Southern California, despite proposals to haul trash by rail to the desert or burn it in energy-conversion plants.

Last year alone, BFI reported $7.4 billion in revenues, and county sanitation officials predict that BFI will be in a strong position at the end of the century when operating permits for several other county landfills expire.

“There are going to be some shortages after the year 2000,” said Joe Haworth, an environmental engineer with the county Sanitation District.

For example, landfill permits are scheduled to expire by 2000 for the Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley, Chiquita Canyon Landfill near Santa Clarita, the BKK Landfill in West Covina and the Azusa Western Landfill in Azusa.

BFI believes Sunshine Canyon can accept trash for the next eight to 12 years. Beyond that, BFI has submitted an application with the city to reopen another 205-acre portion of the dump within the city’s borders for an additional eight to 12 years.

All told, BFI may be accepting trash at Sunshine Canyon to the year 2021.

“I believe these sites are valuable because they provide good low-cost alternatives to hauling trash by rail,” said Arnie S. Berghoff, a BFI spokesman.

For landfill neighbors, BFI’s application to open another portion of the landfill means one sure thing: more legal and political battles aimed at closing the dump.

“We are now considering our options,” said Rosemary Woodlock, the attorney for an anti-dump group called the North Valley Coalition of Concerned Citizens.

In the battle, the coalition has itself been the source of some controversy when it quietly accepted $60,000 from WMX Technologies--a giant waste-management firm and rival of BFI--to pay for a study that questioned the seismic safety of Sunshine Canyon Landfill.

Woodlock defended the coalition, saying it was being outgunned by BFI and was desperate for funding.

In response to the incident, city ethics officials vowed to consider tightening ethics rules to prevent such undisclosed funding in the future.

Sunshine Canyon lies in land labeled in county documents as a significant ecological area that is home to stands of oak, maple, sycamore and other trees that make it one of the largest hardwood forests in Southern California.

The dump was first opened in 1956 on 1,425 acres that straddle the city-county border north of Granada Hills.

For years, residents around the dump complained of odors, noise and trash from the landfill making their way into the nearby upper-middle-class neighborhoods of Granada Hills.

When the winds blow just right, Granada Hills residents say private documents, personal letters and other paper trash dumped at the landfill will end up on their front lawns and streets.

“These people have been fighting trash in their yards for 25 years,” Woodlock said.

Coalition members celebrated a brief victory in September 1991 when the landfill on the city side closed after its permit expired. But by then, BFI had already sought a permit with the county to expand the landfill to the county side.

The city of Los Angeles, led by Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents adjacent communities, sued to block the expansion, claiming that the environmental impacts of the project were not adequately studied.

Environmentalists also entered the fray when seven people chained themselves to oak trees at the site of the proposed expansion in hopes of delaying the project.

But the lawsuit--which cost the city over $500,000--only delayed the county’s final approval until 1993.

BFI was sidelined again in March 1995 when the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals voted to prohibit the landfill operators from routing trash trucks through an access road within the city borders.

The legal battle resumed when BFI filed a $400-million lawsuit against the city, claiming that the zoning decision kept BFI from legally using its own property.

In December, the city reached an out-of-court settlement with BFI. Under the terms of the new agreement, the city would allow BFI to use the road and, in exchange, BFI would drop the lawsuit and pay the city more than $500,000 for environmental and community programs. The city would also receive “competitive” trash disposal rates at the landfill.

The North Valley Coalition members said they felt betrayed by the city’s agreement. Soon after, the coalition filed a lawsuit against the city and BFI, claiming that the agreement to permit trash trucks on the road violated state planning and zoning laws.

Last month, a Superior Court judge ruled that the agreement violated no laws and cleared the way to reopen the landfill on the county side.

Although Woodlock and the coalition have appealed the ruling, there appear to be no more legal obstacles to the dump’s opening.

“Don’t expect to see me cutting the ribbon” at the landfill, Bernson said.

As for the application to reopen a 205-acre portion of the landfill on the city side, Berghoff said he expects city hearings to begin early next year.