ACTIVISTS APPLAUD END OF ELSMERE DUMP BATTLE : GROUP PAYS TRIBUTE TO MCKEON'S VIGILANCE.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

Anti-dump activists gathered Thursday at the site of the proposed Elsmere Canyon Landfill to celebrate its demise and pay homage to U.S. Rep. Howard ``Buck'' McKeon who pushed Congress to bury it.

About 20 city officials and environmentalists held a news conference to celebrate last week's passage by the U.S. Senate of the Omnibus Parks and Land Management Act of 1996. Within the act is a provision, slipped in by the Santa Clarita Republican, that prevents construction of the landfill in the Angeles National Forest.

``I'm proud to stand here today and enthusiastically proclaim we saved Elsmere Canyon,'' said McKeon, who faces re-election next month. ``We sent a strong message that it's not OK to destroy our environment and trash our forest.''

President Clinton is expected to soon sign the bill, which provides for monuments, historical sites and parks in 41 states stretching from the Presidio in San Francisco to the Freedom Trail in Boston.

The provision prohibits landfill operator Browning-Ferris Industries from orchestrating a land swap that would have placed the landfill in the 1,600-acre canyon in exchange for privately held lands on the edge of the forest.

The 190 million-ton dump covering 900 acres would have been one of the largest in the nation.

``The good guys won,'' Mayor Pro Tem Clyde Smyth said.

But activists, fearful that BFI may build a smaller landfill on private land outside the forest, vowed to continue their fight against future dumps.

``We still have to be vigilant,'' said Councilwoman Jill Klajic, who recently returned from Washington, D.C., to lobby against the dump.

It was Klajic who spurred the city of Santa Clarita to fight the landfill, her campaign theme in 1990 during her first successful run for City Council.

City Council members at the time, including McKeon, were reluctant to take the stand, preferring to wait for environmental studies to be completed. At one point, McKeon suggested the city appoint a panel to work with landfill advocates to see what concessions Santa Clarita could gain if the dump were approved.

On Thursday, the mood alternated between joyful and somber Thursday as Smyth gave McKeon a gold-painted steel stake bearing the name ``Elsmere'' and Chumash Indian leader Charlie Cook performed a purification rite blessing at the site.

McKeon enlisted the aid of Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein and presidential candidate Bob Dole in attaching the Elsmere provision to the federal land bill.

``Today there is someone who hit a home run, and he hit it out of the ballpark,'' said Keffe Ferrandini, founder of Save the Angeles Foundation. ``And banning a catch by an 11-year-old lobbyist in the outfield we won this game.''

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Photo: (Color) U.S. Rep. Howard ``Buck'' McKeon gets a bles sing from Chumash Indian Charlie Cook at the site of the proposed landfill at Elsmere Canyon in the Angeles National Forest. Environmentalists and city officials were on hand Thursday to celebrate the Senate's passage of the Omnibus Parks and Land Management Act of 1996 last week, which prevents the construction of a dump inside the forest.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News