GRANADA HILLS DUMP TO REOPEN : STATE BOARD APPROVES SUNSHINE CANYON LINER.

Byline: Keith Stone Daily News Staff Writer

Sunshine Canyon Landfill won final permission Monday to begin accepting trash again, climaxing a five-year fight with nearby residents who had joined the dump's corporate competitor in an unorthodox alliance.

The state Regional Water Quality Control board voted 6-0 to approve construction of a landfill liner that is designed to prevent garbage-tainted runoff from leaking into tap water for some 3.5 million people.

Monday's ruling was the last that Browning-Ferris Industries needed to reopen its Granada Hills dump, which a company official said should begin taking Los Angeles trash sometime next month.

After the five-hour hearing that drew more than 250 people to Camarillo City Hall, BFI spokesman Arnie Berghoff dismissed the residents' opposition as a ploy to keep the dump closed, not to ensure that it is safe.

``I don't think it had a lot to do with substance,'' he said. ``It had a lot to do with: What do we challenge next?''

Residents who oppose reopening the dump said they would file an appeal of the board's ruling with the state water authority and possibly in federal court. Opponents have fought the dump since at least before its city permit expired in 1991.

``I am frustrated, and I am disappointed. I am disappointed in our government,'' said Esther Simmons, who lives less than a mile from the landfill and is a member of the North Valley Coalition, which opposes the dump.

``BFI has them in the palm of their hand,'' she said of the Regional Water Quality Board.

Board members said they supported their staff's conclusion that BFI's liner design meets all federal and state standards for protecting water supplies.

``I don't see any adverse impacts, as a result of the liner as designed,'' said board member John Slezak.

Some board members took issue with the North Valley Coalition for having not disclosed earlier that it took $60,000 from a BFI rival to pay for a study that questions the safety of the landfill. The source of the money, WMX Technologies Inc., was disclosed in a Wall Street Journal article last week.

WMX subsidiary Waste Management Inc. is seeking approval for a landfill of its own in San Bernardino County, a dump that someday could compete with BFI's Sunshine Canyon.

North Valley Coalition President Wayde Hunter told board members that WMX did not buy influence over his group's report.

``Nobody tells us how to use our money,'' Hunt said. ``Please don't ask me about this kind of thing. There is nothing wrong with this.''

Board member Larry Zarian disagreed, saying the source of the donation is necessary in order to put the coalition's engineering report in perspective.

``I care who supplies the funds. Are they in opposition?'' Zarian asked. ``I think it is an important question. It is not a determining factor in my mind on how I am going to vote.''

After the hearing coalition attorney Rosemary Woodlock said the board might not have based its decision on the donation, but ``it gave them an excuse.''

``If they really looked at the facts, why would it matter where the money comes from?'' Woodlock said.

The bulk of the hearing was taken up by testimony from scientists on each side who sought to prove that each other's conclusions were flawed.

At the end, board member Charlotte Craven noted that she had deliberated on several other landfill proposals, but that Monday's hearing contained particularly complex testimony.

``Some of it I didn't understand,'' she conceded.

The board was presented with a report by its staff, which recommended approval of the project. ``The expansion does not pose a significant threat to water,'' said Rod Nelson, landfills unit chief for the board.

Further, leakage from the landfill because of a liner rupture would be quickly detected in wells and stopped before it reached the Balboa Tunnel Inlet, which carries tap water, Nelson said.

Leslie F. Harder, chief of the state Department of Water Resources' civil engineering branch, said the landfill liner design meets tougher standards than required under federal and state rules.

BFI brought its own scientist, Edward Kavazanjian, who said the methods used to design Sunshine Canyon's liner have been used on many other landfills that have since survived earthquakes.

``There is not one record of discharge of contaminants,'' he said.

The North Valley Coalition report raises several concerns about safety at the landfill, including whether BFI used faulty calculations and whether the dump could overflow with tainted rainwater.

Consulting engineer Robert Pyke said the liner might be safe for what BFI is proposing initially, but he worries about future plans to build on top of the landfill. And focusing on just the initial project, he said, ``is just blowing smoke.''

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Map

Map: Sunshine Canyon Landfill

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