Dump Vote Delayed, but Conditions Added

The Los Angeles City Council set additional conditions Wednesday for expansion of Sunshine Canyon Landfill into Granada Hills, including a mandate that trash trucks eventually be converted to clean fuels, but delayed a final vote on the dump until Dec. 8.

In addition to the truck conversion rules, the council voted unanimously to include a sunset clause that would require Browning-Ferris Industries to reapply in 10 years to continue operating the landfill.

The council also agreed to require that video cameras be installed to monitor operations, that half of the franchise fees collected from BFI go to a trust fund to benefit Granada Hills and that BFI post a bond to indemnify the city against claims by residents involving air and water pollution.

With two key supporters absent, it was uncertain whether the zone change would get the eight votes needed for approval, so the action was delayed. The initial vote last month was 9 to 5 in favor of allowing BFI to reopen a section of the landfill it operated until 1991.

Wayde Hunter, president of the North Valley Coalition, said the new conditions are not enough for the group to drop its vehement opposition to the zone change.

“They did pass some conditions we feel need to be done, but we at the North Valley Coalition still don’t hold out much hope that they will stop this,” Hunter said. “The [10-year] cap doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton told the council that Sunshine Canyon Landfill is the least expensive alternative to disposing of the city’s trash.

Holding a trash can filled with play dollars with Council President John Ferraro’s face on the front, Hunter and coalition member Mary Edwards charged that the council was putting money ahead of public health.

“Sadly, the discussion here has been about economics, not people,” said Edwards, one of about 50 dump opponents who attended the two-hour council discussion.

The council also heard opposition, based on health concerns, from students at a nearby middle school and in a letter read on behalf of 21 teachers at Van Gogh Elementary School.

Council members Mike Hernandez and Rita Walters said they fear the city will be left without a place to dump its trash if it does not approve expansion of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill.

The vote was 10 to 3 in support of requiring BFI to convert all of its trash trucks at the landfill from diesel to clean fuels within three years of a city task force determining the change is technically and financially feasible.

The motion, by Councilman Mike Feuer, would require 75% of the trucks using the landfill to be converted within six years of the task force finding. That would essentially require the city to convert its entire fleet of 600 trucks to clean fuel.

“We know that diesel causes cancer,” Feuer said.