Proposal to Expand Landfill Advances

A Los Angeles City Council committee put the final touches Tuesday on a proposal to expand the Sunshine Canyon Landfill to property in Granada Hills, clearing the way for final approval after adopting slight modifications offered last week by a group of residents who oppose the development.

But none of the major modifications proposed by the North Valley Coalition, a Granada Hills homeowners’ group, for the Browning-Ferris Industries facility were adopted.

“We’re not surprised,” said the coalition’s Mary Edwards. “But it’s disheartening because we had asked for the size to be smaller and for them to keep the garbage below ridgelines. We didn’t get all we wanted.”

The Planning and Land Use Management Committee did agree with 50 of the coalition’s smaller suggestions, essentially agreeing to alter the language of some of the development plans so Browning Ferris’ requirements be made more clear and specific.

“I said from the outset of this meeting that there should be no substantive changes” to the plan, representative Cindy Miscikowski of Encino said. “What we got was a better understanding of some of the gray areas” in the Planning Commission’s report.

Miscikowski cited the committee’s insistence that BFI be allowed to operate heavy, diesel-fueled machinery on the site only after 5 a.m., though work on the site can begin as early as 4 a.m.

Examples of other modifications include an increase in the number of trees to be planted on the site in the first years of operation, a requirement that more cover be spread over the fill if an odor problem develops, and that bilingual signs be placed on the property instructing haulers that hazardous waste is not allowed.

Last week Councilman Hal Bernson, the committee head who represents the Granada Hills area, voted against the landfill. That came as no surprise since Bernson helped spearheaded a charge to close a BFI landfill on the same property.

Conceding the landfill would probably get the approval of his colleagues, Bernson voted Tuesday for the modifications. “I’m not happy,” Bernson said. “I’ve been an opponent of this thing for 27 years, but at least voting for some of these suggestions gives us something to feel better about.”

The new landfill would be a 494-acre facility, portions of which will be just a quarter-mile from homes in Granada Hills.

Combined with a 216-acre Sunshine dump already open on adjacent county property the entire property would be the largest landfill in the nation, according to Bernson.