Daily News of Los Angeles
By Kerry Cavanaugh
Feb 21, 2005
On the campaign trail in 2001, Mayor James Hahn promised to dump Los Angeles' trash outside city limits and to work to close the city's two remaining landfills, both in the San Fernando Valley.
Now, with Hahn seeking re-election four years later, the mayor is again pledging to end urban dumps, and several critical decisions on the horizon will test whether he fulfills that pledge.Will city officials allow Bradley Landfill to rise an additional 43 feet above Sun Valley?
Will the city continue to truck its trash to Sunshine Canyon in Granada Hills, or will the City Council banish 4,000 tons per day of residential refuse to remote areas?
The issue stirs passions in the North Valley, where residents have long endured the diesel fumes, scarred landscape, odors and blowing trash. But their problems don't inspire much emotion among voters elsewhere in the city who enjoy the benefits of lower-cost urban landfills and who experience none of the disadvantages.
``Trash is one of those issues that, unless you live in close proximity to a landfill, you just want to make sure it gets picked up,'' said Richard Lichtenstein, a political consultant. ``It's not something that's sexy or will end up on a 30-second spot.''
But inside the communities around the two dumps, residents are citing diesel truck traffic, dust, odors and potential groundwater pollution in pushing Hahn and his challengers to make commitments to close the landfills and stop expansions.
``We have to make a stand. In the past, Los Angeles has opted to fill dumps and not to look at other possible ways of dealing with trash,'' said the Rev. Richard Zanotti of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church in Sun Valley, a leader of One LA-Industrial Areas Foundation.
So far these neighborhood activists have prompted Hahn and most of his major rivals to stake out similar positions.
They all oppose urban landfills in principle. They all want more recycling, particularly from apartments and businesses. And most candidates said they believe residents would willingly pay for trash-disposal methods easier on the environment.
But they are split on specifics.
The Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council asked the candidates in a questionnaire about where they stand on Sunshine Canyon Landfill. Hahn, state Sen. Richard Alarcon, Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa and former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg said they would end the city's contract with Sunshine Canyon in 2006.
``Everybody in the city has to understand the only landfills are in the Valley, and that's not fair,'' Hahn said. ``We have to demonstrate that it's got to be more than just the lowest cost. We're going to get the City Council to see this is basically a backward way of looking at waste.''
Skeptics note Sunshine Canyon has permits to operate an additional 25 years and will continue to take trash from other cities. Hahn said ending the contract is the first step toward closing the dump. Longtime Sunshine opponents credit the mayor with changing the mind-set at City Hall.
``If it hadn't been for the mayor saying he would close landfills in Los Angeles, then I don't think the city and its various agencies would have been open to change,'' said Wayde Hunter, president of the North Valley Coalition. ``It would have been business as usual: Dump it in the cheapest place.''
Hertzberg used to be a proponent of Sunshine Canyon but changed his mind after jumping into the mayor's race. He told Granada Hills residents he also would stop using the dump in 2006.
``As he understands the issues now, he was wrong,'' said Hertzberg's spokesman Matt Szabo. ``At the time he thought it would be the best solution on the table, but he's committed to creating a landfill-free city, and he's committed to closing Sunshine Canyon.''
Parks, though, questions the wisdom and potential taxpayer cost of Hahn's plan to stop sending city trash to Sunshine Canyon.
``Is our goal to stop using landfills, or is it to stop using landfills in Los Angeles?'' Parks said. ``It's somewhat disingenuous to say we think landfills should be closed and then we go open another landfill in someone else's neighborhood.''
Farther east in the Valley, activists are making Bradley Landfill a key issue in the mayor's race. Nearly 1,000 men and women packed a Pacoima Catholic church Tuesday night to hear Villaraigosa and Alarcon pledge their opposition to the proposed Bradley Landfill expansion and trash-transfer station.
The other candidates couldn't attend the event, but One LA-Industrial Areas Foundation leaders intend to meet with all the candidates, get their positions on the landfill projects and then start walking precincts in Sun Valley, Pacoima, Van Nuys and Canoga Park to let residents know who opposes the expansion and who doesn't.
Hertzberg said he wouldn't support the expansion or the transfer station at Bradley.
Hahn also opposes the landfill expansion, but was undecided on the transfer-station proposal, noting that if city officials want to close landfills in the city, they need to build facilities where the waste can be transferred from trash trucks to long-haul big rigs.
Parks said he didn't know enough about the Bradley proposal to comment.