EDITORIAL THE FINAL BETRAYAL WITH ONE LAST BACKROOM DEAL, SUNSHINE CANYON LANDFILL EXPANSION BECOMES A REALITY.

THE quiet opening of the massive expansion at Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Granada Hills on Wednesday was an act of municipal betrayal, but is anyone surprised?

When it comes to Sunshine Canyon, we've come to expect betrayal.

It was an act of betrayal when, back in 1999, the City Council and Mayor Richard Riordan approved opening the enormous dump in a residential community.

And it was an act of betrayal when James Hahn, then city attorney, successfully fended off every legal challenge to the dump's expansion.

So perhaps it's only fitting that the newly expanded dump started business the way it did: Unannounced, with no warning to the community, no chance for those who have long opposed the expansion to even stage a ceremonial protest.

And, of course, the deal was consummated in one of those infamous City Hall backroom bargains that always seem to come at the public's expense.

On Monday, expansion opponents went to a hearing on Sunshine Canyon and left thinking the dump's opening would need to be delayed. That's because the hearing left unresolved a key issue: Whether Browning-Ferris Industries, which operates the dump, could get away with using gas-powered pickup trucks at the site, and not the alternative fuel-powered ones that the landfill's permit requires.

But in City Hall, business doesn't end when the people leave. That's when it starts.

Behind closed doors, Planning Department officials effectively voided one of the key environmental protections that Granada Hills residents had fought for. BFI could use the polluting vehicles, so long as it agreed to study the alternatives.

Never mind that the city's own environmental affairs director had urged that BFI be held to the higher standard. This is business. And for six years, the business of city politicians and bureaucrats has been to give BFI its dump, neighbors be damned.

At long last, the insiders have got what they wanted. Meanwhile, residents of the San Fernando Valley get nothing but fumes, exhaust and tons and tons of stinking trash.