2 Cities Against Toland Project Settle Lawsuit

Bowing to financial and legal reality, Fillmore and Santa Paula city officials have settled a lawsuit that was a last-ditch effort in a bitter battle to prevent the expansion of the Toland Road Landfill between the two cities.

However, lawsuits filed against the landfill project by a tiny elementary school district and neighboring farmers remain pending.

The two cities will split a onetime payment of $307,000 from the Ventura Regional Sanitation District as part of the settlement agreement announced Tuesday.

The settlement comes in the wake of an October appeals court ruling that allowed the expanded landfill to remain in operation.

“There were two previous judgments made . . . and we didn’t win,” Murray Warden, Santa Paula’s interim city manager, said Monday night after the City Council had approved the settlement agreement. “Why chase more money into the thing?”

Together, the two cities have spent $85,000 to $90,000 on legal fees fighting the landfill’s $3-million expansion.

Toland was transformed from a small dump that accepted about 135 tons of trash a day into the recipient of about 10 times that amount after last year’s closure of Oxnard’s Bailard Landfill.

Opponents lambasted the expansion’s effect on the agricultural area, citing increased traffic, noise, dust and potential environmental problems.

Ironically, Santa Paula added to those impacts by boycotting the landfill just 4 1/2 miles away in favor of hauling its waste on dangerous California 126 through Fillmore to Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Los Angeles County. That tactic led to a garbage removal bill $90,000 higher than the cost of using Toland, Warden said.

As part of the settlement, Santa Paula will immediately begin dumping at Toland.

In addition, the sanitation district will make “reasonable efforts” to reduce the additional $5-a-ton tipping fee that the two cities pay for transporting their waste directly to Toland rather than taking it to facilities in Oxnard or Ventura, where recyclables are removed.

Moreover, the cities have agreed to drop any other action against the dump.

Along with Ventura County Citizens to Stop Toland Landfill, the two cities had been appealing a State Water Resources Board decision that eliminated size restrictions on the dump because it found no compelling evidence of an active earthquake fault on the 80-acre site.

But most importantly, the settlement will be a step toward mending any schism within the sanitation district, Chairwoman Judy Lazar said. The district represents eight cities from Ojai to Thousand Oaks, although Thousand Oaks takes its trash to dumps in Simi Valley or Calabasas.

“Hopefully, this gets us back to having the kind of healthy relationship we’ve had with all our members over the years,” Lazar said, adding that the financial settlement was an acknowledgment of the dump’s impact on the rural Santa Clara Valley over the next 30 years.

Fillmore City Manager Roy Payne said the city planned to use part of its $153,500 share of the money to help pay for a police storefront operation.

However, he declined to characterize the financial settlement as a payoff.

“I don’t see it as selling out,” he said. “I see it as making a decision that is in the best interests of a community which, at this time, is not investing further in litigation where our chances of success seem to be diminishing.”

Officials with the school district and opposition group could not be reached for comment on the status of their legal action against the district.