3 on Board See Weldon Dump as Last Resort : Wastes: They would back the canyon landfill site only if a new study shows that there is no other way to dispose of trash from the western county in the future.

A majority of the Board of Supervisors, reviving a 5-year-old debate about the site of Ventura County’s next landfill, has said that a garbage dump in Weldon Canyon near Ventura will be permitted only as a last resort.

The supervisors’ comments come as the county prepares to release a long-awaited report on the environmental effect a proposed 551-acre landfill would have on that scenic canyon between Ventura and Ojai.

The canyon, about a mile east of California 33, north of Canada Larga Road, was identified by a 1985 county study as the best of 38 possible sites for a new landfill because of its clay soil and proximity to the cities of the western county. But opponents have said it would clog already congested roadways and create pollution that would drift into the Ojai Valley.

County supervisors said Saturday they will make no final decision about Weldon Canyon until they review the new environmental study due late this month. They are expected to vote on the proposal this year.

But three of the five supervisors--Maggie Erickson, Susan K. Lacey and Maria VanderKolk--said they could back the proposal only if the new study shows that development of Weldon Canyon is the only way to dispose of trash from the western county in the future.

The Weldon landfill would replace Oxnard’s Bailard dump, which is scheduled to close in late 1993. The county also has landfills near Simi Valley and Santa Paula, but they serve the central and eastern county.

The three supervisors said Weldon supporters must convince them that recycling and other alternatives to a new landfill cannot meet the county’s future disposal needs.

“I think it would be very difficult to support Weldon,” Erickson said. Her district includes the Ojai Valley, which officials say would bear the brunt of air pollution and traffic created by the landfill.

Lacey, whose district includes the canyon itself, said she hopes that the Regional Sanitation District, a public agency, will identify a better location when it completes its own, separate study this summer. The district is considering 33 sites but has kept the locations secret.

“Maybe there is some technological fix that will allow us to keep operating at Bailard with a small amount of landfilling and a lot of recycling and composting,” Lacey said.

The state requires that cities and counties recycle 25% of their trash by 1995 and 50% by the end of the decade.

VanderKolk said she will also focus on alternatives to a new landfill.

“It’s my dream not to do a landfill at all,” she said. “I will fight Weldon Canyon every step of the way until I know that it is the only solution.”

Supervisor Vicky Howard, who will assume office along with VanderKolk today, said her mind is open on the landfill issue. But she joined VanderKolk and Lacey in expressing concern that Waste Management of North America, which would operate the Weldon landfill, would have a near-monopoly on the county waste business. The company already runs the large Simi Valley landfill. Supervisors Erickson and John K. Flynn said that because landfills operate under county permits, price gouging would not be allowed.

Only Waste Management and the Regional Sanitation District have expressed interest in building a new landfill for the western county.

Flynn, who appears to be the board’s strongest supporter of the Weldon site, said the canyon may be the county’s only good solution.

Flynn said he strongly opposes use of the Bailard landfill, which is in his district, after its permit expires in three years. Operated for decades, that landfill borders the Santa Clara River near Gonzales Road and Victoria Avenue in north Oxnard.

“Bailard is simply the wrong place for a landfill,” Flynn said. “You don’t put a landfill next to a river or on top of a valuable underground water resource.” He said toxic liquids could leach into the area’s high ground-water table.

The debate over Weldon Canyon is expected to intensify this month, when the county releases one of the most extensive and expensive environmental studies in its history.

The $1-million study, which not even supervisors have seen yet, outlines how the proposed landfill on owner Shull Bonsall’s Rancho Canada Larga will affect nearby residents. About 270 houses are within one mile of it.

The study will also list alternatives to development at Weldon Canyon, including a landfill at nearby Hammond Canyon and the extension of Bailard’s operating permit. Its operator, the Regional Sanitation District, has applied to the county to extend that permit for at least two years.

In Weldon Canyon, Waste Management proposes to build a landfill that could accept 35.5 million tons of trash over 40 years.

The giant company--which runs landfills, recycling firms and hazardous waste repositories worldwide--plans to install a protective liner over the canyon’s clay soil to keep liquids from leaching into ground water, project manager James Jevens said. A system to collect toxic gases is also planned, he said.

The landfill would cause only 600 truck and automobile round trips each day on California 33, Jevens said. The county has not released a traffic estimate.

The Weldon landfill, Jevens argued, could prove an excellent neighbor to environmentalists who want to limit growth in the Ventura River Valley area.

“The advent of the landfill could preclude building houses nearby,” said Jevens. “So, as ironic as it sounds, the landfill could in fact preserve the open space.”

Jevens acknowledged that his company has been accused of mismanagement and deliberate regulatory violations elsewhere, but said that its record in Ventura County is excellent. Supervisors said they knew of no problems with the company’s Simi Valley operation.

But Nina Shelley, an environmentalist, Ojai mayor and member of the board of the Regional Sanitation District, said she opposed Weldon and wants any new landfill to be operated by a public agency.

“The people of Ojai have always been opposed to a landfill at Weldon because of the air quality problems mainly,” she said.

The Environmental Coalition of Ventura County opposes the landfill because it is only about 4,300 feet away from the closest housing tract, spokeswoman Pat Baggerly said. “The coalition has been begging for a more remote location for a long time,” she said.

William Mount, manager of planning for the county Air Pollution Control District, said that the landfill will inevitably result in more air pollution. He said the new report evaluates health risks to residents who live near the canyon from toxic gases.

“I don’t believe the landfill would pose any significant danger to any nearby individuals,” Mount said. The 1985 study found that Weldon Canyon was “the most environmentally sound site,” he said.

Other concerns at the Weldon site include earthquake faults, damage to endangered or rare species of plants and animals and whether the canyon contains the remains of a Chumash Indian village.

Scott Ellison, a county planner who has overseen development of the report, said a Chumash Village is not located in the Weldon area.

“It will really be interesting to see where we dump our trash in 1994,” Ellison said.