Panel to Look at Dumping

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn on Thursday appointed a 10-member advisory committee to look for ways to send less trash--or none at all--to the Sunshine Canyon and Bradley landfills in an effort to placate secession supporters in the San Fernando Valley.

The committee will study alternative disposal methods, such as shipping trash to desert landfills and converting garbage to energy.

Many local residents support seceding from Los Angeles because they resent having tons of garbage from all over the city dumped near their homes.

A proposal by Browning-Ferris Industries to expand Sunshine Canyon Landfill into Granada Hills looms as a top issue in the campaign to decide whether the Valley will form its own city.

Wayde Hunter, president of the anti-landfill North Valley Coalition and a member of Hahn’s new panel, said the mayor’s action Thursday is a sign that Valley complaints are being heard. The coalition has not taken a position on secession.

“Things seem to be moving in the right direction, and he is involving the community,” Hunter said. “How it will come out in the end, we don’t know.”

The City Council last month ordered investigators to determine whether radioactive waste was dumped at Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley and whether it presents a health hazard.

Hahn pledged in his mayoral campaign that he would seek to close the Sunshine Canyon and Bradley landfills. Hahn spokeswoman Hilda Delgado said Thursday that he stands by that promise. “The mayor has said over and over that everything he’s doing is to keep the city together,” she said.

Delgado said studying alternatives will take six months to a year. The Valley secession proposal, however, could be on the ballot as early as November.

Besides Hunter, citizen members of the committee are Ellen Mackey of the East Valley Coalition; Mary Edwards of Landfill Alternatives Save Environmental Resources; and UCLA professor Rick Greenwood.

Other members are Deputy Mayor Brian Williams; Greig Smith, an aide to Councilman Hal Bernson; Mark Dierking, an aide to Councilman Alex Padilla; Wayne Tsuda, a city environmental official; Barry Breggan of the city Sanitation Department; and Dee Carey of the city’s administrative office.