Trash Contract Raises a Stink for Santa Clarita Council

After a year of negotiations, the Santa Clarita City Council tonight will consider contracts for curbside trash pickup. But unlike the typical ho-hum discussions of the past decade, today’s session promises a lively debate.

The city is in the midst of a garbage war.

Trash-hauling competitors are trying a variety of approaches, from offering to donate a coveted expanse of land and cutting rates to publishing full-page newspaper ads appealing to customers’ loyalties.

“I’ve seen all kinds of offers made, but nothing quite like this,” said Laith B. Ezzet, a veteran Newport Beach specialist on municipal waste management. He predicts the battle in Santa Clarita is a forerunner of tiffs about to become common throughout the region as consolidation and acquisition of trash companies becomes more national, even global in scope.

“We have seen it in Southern California over the last three to four years,” said Ezzet, a consultant with Hilton Farnkopf & Hobson, which conducts rate and service comparisons for more than 200 California agencies. “Not only are smaller companies being acquired by large companies, but several smaller companies are forming new umbrellas and becoming much larger.”

All four trash companies competing for the Santa Clarita contract are subsidiaries of the nation’s three largest players in the industry: Waste Management of Houston; Allied Waste Industries of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Republic Services of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Santa Clarita in February was expected to renew contracts with three local haulers--Blue Barrel, Santa Clarita Disposal and Atlas--which have serviced the community for decades. But action was postponed after a fourth company--Browning Ferris Industries--made an eleventh-hour bid for an exclusive franchise, promising to donate land to the city and reduce rates.

The development prompted officials to call for a special session, to be held at 6 p.m. today at City Hall. In order to consider the new offer, the council would have to open the franchise issue to bids, which could trigger a five-year delay in awarding a new contract, city officials said.

Owners of Blue Barrel have led the opposition to the intrusion, using local newspapers and television stations to extol its long history in the community and its donations to charitable organizations.

But Mayor Laurene Weste said she is having trouble keeping track of the players. She pointed out that Blue Barrel and Santa Clarita Disposal, which have merged, were recently purchased by Waste Management. Atlas is a subsidiary of Republic, which last summer traded some of its assets with Allied, which owns BFI.

“It’s gotten really confusing for me,” Weste said. “All of the little companies we talk about are really three big companies. The little companies don’t exist anymore. They’ve been taken over.”

The size of the players gives them greater ammunition to compete for the lucrative franchise in the rapidly growing city, which generates about $12 million annually in trash collection revenues.

BFI is offering to give the city 800 acres of an 1,100-acre site in Elsmere Canyon, a rugged area with a waterfall and woodlands southeast of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeway interchange. The city and environmentalists for years fought a proposal by a previous owner--BKK Corp.--to turn the canyon into a landfill.

In exchange, BFI wants an exclusive, 20-year franchise to pick up the city’s trash, which it would haul to its Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Granada Hills. Santa Clarita’s trash currently is taken to Chiquito Canyon Landfill near Val Verde.

BFI’s last-minute proposal drew a capacity crowd to a council session in February, including competitors and a large contingency from the North Valley Coalition, a Granada Hills-based homeowners and environmental group.

Wayde Hunter of Granada Hills, coalition president, called on Santa Clarita officials to block increased dumping at Sunshine. Citing the coalition’s opposition to proposed landfills at Elsmere and other Santa Clarita locations, Hunter told the council, “We’ve been there for you and we are asking that you be there for us.”

“We don’t believe that landfills belong anywhere near people,” said Mary Edwards of Granada Hills, another coalition member who was active in the opposition to Elsmere a decade ago.

Besides its offer to donate land, BFI officials also propose a 20% reduction in residential refuse collection rates, and an additional 12% discount for seniors age 62 and older. BFI officials say the offer would save residents more than $2 million annually.

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Residents of an estimated 37,000 single-family homes in the city currently each pay $22.13 monthly, among the highest fees in Southern California, according to a regional survey. In comparison, residents of Los Angeles pay $6 monthly; Glendale, $10.10; San Fernando, $14.90; Palmdale, $16.40; Lancaster, $17.11; and Burbank, $17.40.

Santa Clarita, like many cities throughout California, began franchising trash services following passage of a state law in 1989 requiring all cities to divert at least half of their solid waste by the year 2000.

Rates have been frozen in Santa Clarita since 1996 and would remain frozen for another four years if current contracts are extended, city officials said. The rates are higher partly because the city requires more services and programs than other municipalities, such as green waste removal, said Jill A. Fosselman, acting director of environmental services.

“In general, residents are content with the level of services,” she said. “We rarely get complaints based on costs.”