BOTTOM LINE, IT'S ALL ABOUT KIDS BREATHING.

Byline: KIMIT MUSTON Local View

I don't believe in solutions. I think what happens is that periodically people decide, for whatever reasons, that one group of problems has grown intolerable, so they trade them in for another set of problems they think they can live with. Call it the Muston Theory of the Meandering Course of Human Progress, patent pending.

Ancient Egyptians decided for some reason that huge pyramid-shape burial temples were a good idea. Less-ancient Egyptians decided that pyramids were too expensive and went back to planting their royalty in the ground. Once upon a time in this country, a river without a dam was considered water going to waste. Damless rivers are now referred to as ``natural.''

Which brings me to the Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley. It's not called a landfill by accident. We humans have been filling the land with our trash for millions of years. Maybe we're so messy because we used to live in the trees with chimpanzees. When they're finished with something, they just drop it: Out of tree, out of mind. We share that mind-set, except we're much more inventive than chimps. No mere monkey could have, or would have, invented disposable razor blades, disposable diapers or disposable batteries. We're so clever.

The Bradley Landfill is run by the clever mega-giant Waste Management Inc., and it's the kind of landfill that landfill people are proud of. Bradley is engineered, it's manicured and it's dust-controlled. It meets Environmental Protection Agency quality standards. But it's also full and Waste Management wants to enlarge Bradley by 10 percent.

The workers at Bradley certainly deserve the opportunity to earn a living. Waste Management deserves to run a profitable business, and City Hall certainly needs the taxes they pay. And we all need to have someplace to dump our trash.

The homeowners of Sun Valley say they need relief. They have endured the menagerie of odors that dumps produce, big truck congestion on their neighborhood streets and lowered property values. Waste Management is trying to be a better neighbor, recently agreeing to a community advisory committee so the long-suffering Sun Valley residents will have a say in how the future Bradley is run.

But - and there is always a but - trash arrives at the Bradley Landfill in a stream of largely diesel-powered trucks that spew out slick, black soot. The EPA has cleverly named this soot ``polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,'' a collection of 40 chemicals identified as toxic to skin, eyes and throats, and 15 separate probable human carcinogens, which the EPA estimates annually cause 125,000 cancers nationwide.

A recent British study found that tiny diesel particulates could penetrate deeper into the lungs of children than previously thought, causing inflammation, coughing and respiratory damage - possibly permanently.

Several states, seeking to limit schoolchildren's exposure to the fumes, have made it illegal for diesel buses to idle for more than five minutes. National organizations of firefighters and emergency medical personnel, whose equipment is largely diesel-powered, have issued warnings and guidelines to their members to help limit their exposure as well.

Meanwhile, back home in Sun Valley, a recent study by the University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Family Medicine has found a 29 percent increase in childhood asthma over the past 10 years. The study also found that 14 percent of the children tested suffered from asthma, often previously undiagnosed. Those asthma levels are twice the national average. Asthma is an allergic reaction to chemicals in the air. When you suffer an attack, your airways tighten and you can't catch your breath. You can control asthma with expensive drugs, delivered by pocket inhalators and shots, but even then, it's often debilitating. It is also often fatal.

The few studies done so far have not established a causative link between diesel fumes and asthma. Even if there were, Bradley is far from the only congregation of diesel trucks in Sun Valley. But it is a significant one.

Should the city close the Bradley Landfill, we would have to bear the costs of constructing new landfills beyond the city limits. It would be more expensive in money and fuel to haul our trash longer distances. And remember, Bradley itself was once in an isolated area that filled up with people.

Perhaps higher costs would make us a little less clever about rushing to fill the land. Or perhaps it will only place our trash out of sight, out of mind. Those are problems we can live with. But I would call childhood fatality intolerable, wouldn't you?