Sunshine Canyon Expansion

Re “Bernson Asks Delay on Landfill Vote,” Oct. 16.

We have at least 35 years before the present county-side landfill is full. This is the wrong time to vote on a landfill that is in the wrong place.

Sunshine Canyon Landfill as approved by the county supervisors in 1993 and reopened on the county side in 1995--and as it now exists without any expansion whatsoever--has the capacity to hold 70 million tons of garbage. The Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation currently disposes of 3,400 tons per day in three landfill sites. Even if all trash from the city’s trucks were dumped in Sunshine Canyon alone, 3,400 tons per day for 310 days equals 1,054,000 tons per year. Including all other sources that use the landfill, a good estimate of total capacity in the present landfill equals 2 million tons per year.

This adds up to 35 years before the already despoiled county-side landfill area is full. And this is a conservative figure.

There is a glut of inert landfill space. If inert trash were diverted to these surplus sites, the effective life of Sunshine Canyon would be extended further out in time.

There are alternatives to this environmentally destructive proposal. For example, gasification, which is a closed system with waste heated at super-high temperatures, is efficient and nonpolluting; and rail haul to already degraded sites far from urban areas. These alternatives should be thoroughly examined by our city officials.

It is the duty of our elected representatives to act to protect citizens from the consequences of siting a huge landfill within Los Angeles. The City Council must vote no to this proposal designed to attract trash dumping to Sunshine Canyon from the entire Southern California region.

BARBARA IVERSEN

Granada Hills