By Approving Dump, Council Abandoned a Community

A young courier recently left my house with some signed legal papers along with a check for the filing fee and the hopes of a community that faces living in the shadow of a 200-foot mountain of garbage.

Since that dark day in December when the Los Angeles City Council imperiously approved the expansion of Browning-Ferris Industries’ Sunshine Canyon Landfill in our community, my neighbors and I have scurried about to raise the money to hire Kelly Smith, a bright and enthusiastic young lawyer, to carry our standard.

My neighbors are not litigious and, for most of them, litigating represents a loss of confidence in the democratic process and a reluctant loss of faith in government. What we perceive as the power of BFI’s money and lobbying to influence the council and mayor has tragically left us disillusioned and cynical.

When I meet neighbors in the market, we are incredulous. “How could the council have done this?” we ask. “I wrote to them about my wife’s cancer.” “Don’t they know that all of the city’s water is right next door?” “Did they even think for a minute about my children breathing diesel exhaust from more than 200 garbage trucks every day?” “I’m afraid to live here; I want to sell my house and get out of here but no one wants to buy it.” “Don’t they remember all of BFI’s violations?” “Did they forget they promised us parkland years ago?” “Why didn’t they listen to the alternatives?”

By far, the most common and possibly saddest comment is this: “Money can buy anything in this city.”

The twist tie on the trash bag that contains the unfortunate San Fernando Valley communities has been turned. And so slightly more than a month after the council and mayor abandoned the Valley, our community looks expectantly to its day in court.

We are not so disenchanted that we have abandoned our fight to protect the health of the children and families in the most affected neighborhoods and the water supply of the entire region. We hold fast to our idealism and believe that justice will prevail and that reason, logic and truth will carry the day.

This sadder but wiser community has not become ambivalent. It has become resolute.

The dump expansion has the potential to do a great harm to a great many and for this reason its rejection should not pose an ethical dilemma for any thinking person.

Simply put, it is a very bad plan, and we ask the many good people of Los Angeles to rage against the death of the values that should direct those who govern our city.

The dump expansion has the potential to do a great harm . . . its rejection should not pose an ethical dilemma for any thinking person.