SUNSHINE DUMPING CHEAPER TRUCKING TRASH ELSEWHERE TO ADD $20 MILLION.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

After another round of negotiations, sanitation officials said Wednesday that trucking trash to landfills outside the city will still cost Los Angeles about $20 million more per year than dumping in the Valley's Sunshine Canyon Landfill.

Sanitation officials and Sunshine Canyon opponents had hoped the cost difference would be less after the last round of talks with Waste Management Inc., which has proposed trucking L.A. trash to its landfills in the Antelope Valley and Inland Empire.

However, Sanitation Director Rita Robinson said Waste Management may not have wanted to lay out its best offer yet. There is room for more negotiations - and potentially lower prices - once the proposals go to City Council.

``Waste Management wants to see if the city is really interested in making a deal,'' Robinson said. ``I have a feeling that when we get to council it will open the entire decision.''

Mayor James Hahn has pledged to stop sending city trash to Sunshine Canyon Landfill in 2006, an effort to appease North Valley residents who live downhill from the giant dump.

However, the potential cost increase is Hahn's biggest hurdle. Some City Council members have said that taking trash to far-off landfills would drain money that could be used to hire more police officers or fix streets.

Hahn's office declined to comment on the latest cost estimates, but spokeswoman Sahar Moridani said the mayor is ``looking forward to an active discussion with council on the options.''

The fight for the city's half-billion dollar garbage disposal contract is now down to the nation's two largest trash companies - Waste Management and Browning Ferris Industries, which wants to keep taking L.A. trash to Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Granada Hills.

Under its current contract, BFI would charge the city about $35 million a year to dump in Sunshine Canyon.

Waste Management's bid is $55 million to haul to landfills in the Antelope Valley and Riverside County. That price could drop to $45 million per year if the company can build a trash transfer station at Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley. Residents are fighting the transfer station proposal.

Waste Management officials said they are open to further negotiations with the city. BFI officials could not be reached by late Wednesday.

The city is Sunshine Canyon Landfill's biggest customer, taking 3,600 tons per day of residential trash to the dump - about half of the landfill's daily capacity. The landfill is permitted to operate another 25 years.

The Board of Public Works is expected to forward the trash proposals to the City Council on Friday.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com