Landfill Expansion OKd; Opponents Vow to Sue L.A.

A divided Los Angeles City Council gave final approval Wednesday to a zone change allowing the Sunshine Canyon Landfill to expand into Granada Hills, despite angry testimony from neighbors who fear health risks.

More than 100 people attended the hearing to oppose the zone change sought by Browning Ferris Industries. After the council’s 8-7 vote, opponents said they will file a lawsuit to overturn the action and threatened to mount recall campaigns.

“It wasn’t unexpected. BFI has bought the City Council,” said Wayde Hunter, president of the North Valley Coalition, which led the opposition. He pointed out that BFI spent more than $450,000 on lobbyists and campaign contributions as it pressed for approval.

The zone change allows BFI to accept 55 million tons of trash on 194 acres in the city during the next 26 years. That is in addition to its existing operation on an adjacent 215 acres in unincorporated area.

BFI spokesman Arnie Berghoff said the operation will be subjected to more than 250 conditions to protect residents.

“We’re pleased that the City Council did what is best for the entire city of Los Angeles,” Berghoff said. “They have ensured themselves that they will have an environmentally sound place to dump the city’s waste for the next quarter-century.”

One angry protester was carried from the Council Chamber by Los Angeles Police Department officers and other opponents sobbed, but most of the residents shuffled from the meeting chanting “Recall! Recall!”

Councilman Hal Bernson of Granada Hills said after the raucous, two-hour debate that his constituents were wronged.

“I’m going to join the lawsuit,” he said. “I think this is an action that is improper.”

Berghoff said BFI is anticipating having to defend the expansion in court.

Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski said the city is taking reasonable steps to protect neighbors, some of whom live about a mile from the nearest property line of the landfill.

Conditions include setting up a large buffer zone of open space between neighbors and the dump, monitoring air quality at nearby Van Gogh Street Elementary School, installing cameras at the dump to oversee operations and a requirement that trash trucks using the dump eventually be converted from diesel to cleaner fuels.

Countered Councilman Joel Wachs, “All the conditions in the world don’t change the fact that you are putting a dump in somebody’s backyard.”

Wachs predicted that the dump will be the council’s equivalent of the Los Angeles Board of Education’s Belmont Learning Complex scandal.

Mayor Richard Riordan has supported the expansion but will review the ordinance to make sure it provides reasonable protections for neighbors, spokeswoman Jessica Copen said.

Some opponents, who do not expect a veto, said Wednesday that they plan to pursue a lawsuit alleging that the city failed to conduct adequate studies of the environmental impact of the project and did not follow proper procedures in approving the zone change.

Bernson said the city should have sought bids from other landfills willing to take the city’s trash, adding it might have cost a little more to send trash out to remote desert dumps.

But Councilwoman Ruth Galanter said the city needs to accept responsibility for the 3,400 tons of trash it generates each day.

“The other major alternative [to Sunshine] has been putting it in somebody else’s backyard,” Galanter said.

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Existing Sunshine Canyon Landfill

Approved landfill expansion

Van Gogh St. Elementary School