Area Residents Named to Landfill Committee
Three Valley residents have been appointed to serve two-year terms on the Sunshine Canyon Landfill Community Advisory Committee by Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.
The appointees are Dorena R. Knepper, director of governmental relations at Cal State Northridge; Larry G. Gray, a vice president at the Spindler Engineering Corp. in Van Nuys; and Michael F. Thompson, a Chatsworth resident who is director of criminal justice planning at the mayor’s office.
The committee serves as a liaison between the neighborhood, the county Regional Planning Commission and the dump operator, said Cam Currier, a spokesman for Antonovich.
The landfill, in the Santa Susana Mountains above Granada Hills, stretches across the city’s northwest boundary into unincorporated Los Angeles County. The dump has been there since 1958. It closed in 1991 when its city permit expired and reopened in 1996.
Despite opposition from residents who live near the landfill, dump owner Browning-Ferris Industries of California Inc. received Los Angeles Planning Commission approval in February to expand into 494 acres in Granada Hills. The Los Angeles City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee will review the extension proposal later this month or next. Knepper said she hopes to ease concerns of people who live near the dump.
“It is possible to come to a resolution,” Knepper said. “I’m not coming with one position one way or the other.”
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