Daily News of Los Angeles
By Kerry Cavanaugh
Feb 12, 2005
SUN VALLEY - Activists are pushing Los Angeles officials to order a Spanish-language translation of a massive environmental report on the proposed Bradley Landfill expansion so residents of the heavily Latino neighborhood can read it.
In a community in which nearly 25 percent of the residents speak little or no English, activists argue that many will be unable to understand or raise concerns about the project it unless they can read the environmental impact report in their native language.``This is particularly important in the case of an EIR since it will detail the potential health and safety impacts that the landfill expansion will have on a community whose asthma rates are already twice the national average,'' said Josh Stehlik, supervising attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County.
Waste Management Inc., which operates the landfill and is required to pay for the EIR, has promised to include a small section in Spanish detailing significant environmental problems and ways to lessen those problems. However, managers said they would consider translating the document if requested by the city.
City Councilman Tony Cardenas, who represents the neighborhood around Bradley Landfill, said the city does not have the authority to mandate a foreign-language document.
``I would appreciate it being translated,'' he said. ``It's always disappointing whenever any portion of the community is not informed to the point they could be.''
The activists' request is a first for the city Planning Department, and officials worry that a Spanish-language EIR would set an expensive precedent in a culturally diverse city whose residents speak 150 languages.
``If we allow this EIR in Spanish, then other communities in Chinatown, Koreatown and Little (Tokyo) may request request an EIR in Chinese, Korean and Japanese, and then we'd have to hire people to translate those,'' said Jimmy Liao of the Los Angeles City Planning Department's environmental review section.
Due out this summer, the EIR is expected to be a 500- to 700-page report analyzing air quality, noise, traffic and water quality impacts if the landfill is allowed to expand.
Waste Management wants to raise the elevation of the dump by 43 feet and expand its capacity by 10 percent in order to keep taking trash through April 2007. The landfill is almost at capacity.
The company also wants to build a permanent trash-sorting and transfer facility capable of handling 7,000 tons of trash daily.
Cynthia Despres, a member of the East Valley Coalition and One LA, says the city has an obligation to ensure that all residents can read and comment on decisions that will affect their homes, lives and health.
``Sun Valley is a cesspool of garbage, junkyards, gravel pits and other equally undesirable industries because in the past community residents have been excluded from the decision-making process,'' she said.
Attorneys are split on whether California's Environmental Quality Act, which requires public outreach, would include the translation of environmental reports.
Experts say there might be legal precedent for requiring a foreign-language translation.
In the early 1990s, Kings County Superior Court judge threw out an EIR for a hazardous waste incinerator in the San Joaquin Valley, saying the county and company had failed to provide documents or translation services for a largely Latino community.
``It seems pretty reasonable to say, generally, (reports) should be published in a form that most of the general population can read,'' said Sean Hecht, executive director of the University of California at Los Angeles Environmental Law Center.
Barbara Higgins, a partner with Weston Benshoof, said she's never seen an agency required to translate an EIR.
``There is no provision in CEQA that requires a public agency to translate a document into another language as part of a public outreach requirement.''