The Garbage Chronicles, Part II
The North Valley Coalition sends over the following press release.The California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB), with a majority of newly appointed members by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, plans to decide behind closed doors on a landfill health controversy between powerful garbage companies and local residents.
The North Valley Coalition and other environmental groups oppose the use of construction and demolition "tailings," for use as daily cover on MSW landfills to prevent garbage from blowing or washing away. "Garbage companies see such "alternative daily cover" as a cheap means to dump at no cost," says NVC spokesman Wayde Hunter. "But it’s the public downwind that pays."
"Alternative daily cover" ("ADC") was stopped as a practice after a settlement in a Sacramento Superior Court in a mid 1990’s lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council. But the following year, the garbage industry persuaded the legislature to allow the practice.
According to the CIWMB, since then as much as half of the amounts dumped in landfills have been classified by operators as "ADC." That allows dump operators to escape paying State per ton fees which in turn are used for State recycling and enforcement programs.
The issue comes before the CIWMB on February 14, 2006 at 1:30 p.m., 1001 I Street, Sacramento, California as an appeal of the approvals to use screened "tailings" from a mixed waste recovery facility as ADC on the County side of Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Los Angeles. A recent regulation adopted by the CIWMB with garbage industry pressure allows "construction and demolition" waste as ADC. The North Valley Coalition, which includes nearby residents, says the material is really just a grab-bag of wood, sheetrock, debris, fines, garbage and just about anything else that falls through the screens from the mixed waste recovery facility. The CIWMB recently added new Schwarzenegger appointees Margo Reid Brown and Gary Petersen, who join chair Rosario Marin, a candidate for U.S. Senate in the last election. According to staff memos, the board will decide the matter in closed session
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 2/07/2006 12:02:00 AM
7 Comments:
Huh. I thought they were using the "greenwaste" which we so carefully sort into the green bin for this. That was controversial enough, but now we go another step down the slippery slope. Great.
Here, in our great City, our friends in the north are assulted by the noxious impacts of Sunshine Canyon.
We in the south are assulted by toxic air pollution, traffic, and industrial blight from the Port.
In the middle our friends are assulted by the noise, traffic, air pollution and blight of LAX. Go stand at Crenshaw and Century for a few minutes. If anyone thinks the LAX/"regional solution" wars are over, think again.
We have to find ways to mutually support each other, or we are all lost. In the words of Benjamin Franklin:
"We must all hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
Maybe the Neighborhood Council Congress you reported on elsewhere is a platform for this. Anything is worth a try.
How many of the residents who complain about Sunshine Canyon have been there since 1958 when the landfill first opened on the CITY side? How many of the homes in the "area"(not very close when one actually looks at a map) are directly affected by noise or noxious emissions?
I'd be more worried about power lines on school properties than I would be about a landfill which is NEEDED. LA has no space for landfills....and it would add an additional burden to bring the trash somewhere further away. And conversion technology is great....but it is NOT ready.
Anonymous,
I invite you to my home. You may look into my backyard and view the landfill. You can look at the chopped off ridgeline. You can watch the trucks go up the hill. You can choke on the dust where they stripped out thousands of oak trees before they brought that extra 1400 trucks a day into my neighborhood. Yes you are right that it was a small dump in the 50's in the City. Then they moved to the County. In 1999, they expanded back into the City.
Landfills are NOT needed. And we are definitely not running out of space. I can prove that by the author of the report who said we were running out of space years ago. He reneged publicly and said he was wrong. Alternative technology is needed and it is not that far away. I will gladly educate you and show you the landfill if you wish to come over to my house, yard, school and neighborhood and NOT rely on a map.
Power lines aren't allowed on school property. The State wouldn't allow it. I would be worried about that. Only a private school would be allowed to do that.
Our City cannot control private schools, but they can control City/County landfills.
It's just a matter of getting them to actually do it.
I'm dead serious about coming to my house. All the support I've gathered has been because I've people over.
Email me and make a plan.
Kim
kimthompson@socal.rr.com
And for the good news!
Some of us in the North Valley Coalition will be going to Sacramento next Tuesday for the CIWMB hearing.
Tonight we got the staff report on the Feb. 14 ADC hearing--finding in our favor and recommending to overturn the LEA and Panel approvals, with solid evidence to support that recommendation.
And I agree with Noel.
We MUST all mutually support each other.
Kim...I've been to the landfill....EIR reports say that all the pollution is caused by the freeway nearby and not the landfill.
And at the time..landfills are needed...Conversion technologies are NOT ready yet and won't be for several more years (at least not enough to stop the 1400 trucks/day going to Sunshine). So what happens in those several years w/o Sunshine?
Its a NECESSARY evil that yourself and other environmentalists don't get...the technology isn't ready to stop landfills...YET.
Well, if you've been to the landfill, then I hope you aren't the one who wrote the post saying it wasn't near houses.
I have some great overhead pictures too.
I believe we are MUCH closer to alternative technologies than you do, I guess.
The County has two different committees on alternative technology out there and I do believe they are going to beat the city in that area. They are much farther ahead than the City is.
Between them and Greig's Renew LA plan, I think you are wrong about them being so far off. Five years max.
And there are plenty of other places to take our trash. Use the spot market. That would be a good start.
Do NOT talk to me about environmental justice when we've had this dump for 30 years and every other dump (15 here in a 5 mile radius) is located in an area of immigrants who work hard and don't know how to fight a dump the way we've learned. It's an environmental justice issue when the city closes dumps in wealthier areas that haven't been there as long to dump them in the north valley.
Sunshine Canyon has a Sylmar address. Is Sylmar all white, rich residents? Or is it just okay that their kids have the highest rates of asthma?
I would gladly educate people on the not so fascinating subject of dumps, but it's very difficult when you can tell you are debating some anoymous person who has had conversations with BFI or their supporters and just parrot their bullshit.
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