L.A. to Consider Dump Phaseout

The Los Angeles City Council today will consider phasing out the use of landfills, even without definitive alternatives for more than 900,000 tons of waste each year.

The issue comes up on a day when the council also is scheduled to vote on whether to renew a five-year contract to dump trash at the Sunshine Canyon landfill above Granada Hills. If the contract is not renewed, the city will have to find a place to put its trash beginning next July 1.

“My inclination is to vote no” on the contract, said Councilwoman Wendy Greuel. “The San Fernando Valley has been dumped on for too long. If you keep saying there is no alternative to the landfill, nothing will ever happen.”

Residents of the area have for years protested the presence of the dump. A Los Angeles County study in February determined that there was no evidence of “unusually high rates or patterns of disease among residents living in census tracts near the Sunshine Canyon landfill.”

The report stated that one possible exception was a higher rate of asthma among women living near the dump, although it was unlikely that it was related to Sunshine Canyon.

Nonetheless, the Valley contingent of council members -- led by Greig Smith, who represents Granada Hills, and including Greuel -- has been reluctant to approve a contract. The deadline for signing the contract is July 22, and the pact would guarantee the city the right to take trash to the dump from July 2006 through July 2011.

Voting for a new Sunshine Canyon contract is seen in City Hall as tantamount to supporting the dump, putting votes in future elections at risk.

Smith is up for reelection in 2007. Alex Padilla may run for state Senate in 2006. Greuel and Tony Cardenas are also up for reelection in 2007, and beyond that both may seek higher office.

In response to the Valley contingent’s reluctance to vote for the Sunshine Canyon contract, Councilman Eric Garcetti has introduced a proposal that would reduce the trash L.A. takes to landfills by 2010.

“It’s not a goal, it’s not a study, it’s a mandate,” he said.

The proposal doesn’t make it clear how the city will achieve that. About 60% of the trash produced by Angelenos is already diverted from landfills, mostly because of the city’s high rate of recycling.

The only solutions to redirecting more trash from dumps would be to increase recycling or for the city to either build or get someone to build high-tech facilities that either burn trash or convert it into products such as methanol, ethanol or compost.

Councilwoman Jan Perry, who represents downtown and parts of South Los Angeles, said that she supported Garcetti’s phaseout. “I don’t know whether it has the votes, but I think we need to bring pen to paper and set up a timeline.”