EDITORIAL : DON'T TRASH ON THE VALLEY.

IF the San Fernando Valley were a city in its own right, does anybody in their right mind think it would turn itself into a garbage dump and welcome all of the wretched refuse of neighboring Los Angeles for a million bucks a year?

Ridiculous, of course.

But that's exactly what our city's fathers and mothers have put on the table in proposing to reopen the Sunshine Canyon landfill, which is just one-half mile from homes in Granada Hills.

That's how little they think of the Valley and its 1.6 million people, how much contempt they have for their values, how little respect they show for the need to nurture and develop the community as a haven for ordinary people in a city with so many rich and too many poor.

For 20 years, City Councilman Hal Bernson has waged a lonely war against this dump, winning its closure only to see big money and the selfishness of the rest of the city push for its reopening to keep garbage hauling costs down without regard to the catastrophic consequences to the people of Granada Hills and the Valley as a whole.

Bernson has won a short delay. And the back-room finaglers at City Hall are tinkering with an offer to split the $3 million or $4 million in tipping fees between the local community, Bernson's district and the city general funds with control in the hands of the downtown power structure.

This is outrageous

Los Angeles stands to save millions in garbage fees in the 21st century by dumping its garbage right in the city rather than facing the harsh reality that landfills are unsafe and should be placed far from population centers as other cities have done.

Do we need any further proof than the rising concerns about cancer clusters at schools built on or near old landfills?

The Westside understood well enough to fight successfully against Mission Canyon landfill in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Now it's time for the people of the San Fernando Valley to join in defending themselves, their homes, their jobs, their lifestyles.

While City Hall is investing billions in regenerating downtown, Hollywood and other select areas of the city, it intends to turn the Valley into a garbage dump and pay a lousy million bucks or so a year to keep you quiet.

If the leaders of the Valley, if the people of the Valley, stand still for this, there will be no stopping City Hall in its determination to trash everything decent about the Valley.