City Threatens to Sue If County Won’t Reverse Dump Decision

The Los Angeles City Council voted 12 to 0 Tuesday to warn the County Board of Supervisors to reconsider its recent approval of a massive landfill in a remote part of Sunshine Canyon or the city will sue.

The supervisors illegally approved a bigger landfill than was analyzed by environmental impact reports, said Councilman Hal Bernson, a leading critic of the Sunshine Canyon dump. Bernson represents the Granada Hills neighborhood just south of the canyon. The canyon and the dump run across the city limits into the county.

Bernson introduced a motion that serves notice on the supervisors that unless the city’s environmental concerns are met, it will sue to overturn the board’s decision last Wednesday to grant a permit for a 17 million-ton landfill in the part of Sunshine Canyon located on unincorporated county land.

The Bernson motion--which passed without debate--called on the city attorney’s office to formally protest the supervisors’ action, a legally required prerequisite to filing suit.

Bernson said the supervisors’ approval of the conditional use permit for the dump, owned and operated by Browning-Ferris Industries, was flawed in several respects.

The permit authorized Browning-Ferris Industries to dump 8,000 tons of garbage daily at Sunshine Canyon. But the environmental impact report for the project examined the effects of dumping only 6,400 tons daily at the site, an amount projected to result in 2,385 truck trips each day, Bernson aide Greig Smith said.

Additionally, the permit provides that trucks bearing recyclable materials will not be counted in the trip total, Smith said.

“None of this was analyzed by the EIR,” Smith said. “We’re looking at the possibility of an infinite number of trucks possibly dumping there.”

Bernson said the supervisors’ action was illegal because it was not analyzed in the environmental report.

Bernson also accused the supervisors of illegal “extortionist” tactics.

The county prohibited trash collected in the city of Los Angeles--either by city crews or private haulers--from being dumped in the portion of Sunshine Canyon under county control unless the city grants Browning-Ferris new dumping rights in the portion of the canyon located within the city limits.

That “precludes city taxpayers from utilizing a facility that is open to the general public,” Bernson’s motion said. “Any action of the board . . . to deny city taxpayers the same access granted to other county residents and taxpayers is arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory.”

Bernson headed the fight in recent years to shut down Browning-Ferris’ landfill operation in the city portion of Sunshine Canyon. A city permit to allow dumping in that area expires Sept. 1.