The city of Los Angeles may be the latest to call for a crackdown on Sunshine Canyon Landfill after thousands of odor complaints from residents. Councilman Mitch Englander submitted a motion Tuesday to follow Los Angeles County in calling for a public health investigation of odor complaints. It also follows a petition by regional air regulators to limit the hours and amount of trash allowed at the county’s largest landfill.
“There is absolutely no reason people should be forced to live and go to school in these conditions,” said Englander, who lives in Granada Hills, the source of most landfill complaints. “This community has suffered enough, Republic needs to immediately implement the necessary changes to stop the odors.”
The 362-acre Sunshine Canyon Landfill, at the bottom of Newhall Pass between Granada Hills and Sylmar, collects up to 9,000 tons of trash a day, or up to 2.3 million tons each year.
Republic Services, which operates the Sylmar landfill, has spent $27 million to control its garbage and waste gas odors. Company officials say the proposed regulations would do little to control landfill smell, and that most of the complaints come from less than 20 residents.
But after more than 9,000 odor complaints since 2009, the South Coast Air Quality Management District last summer filed a nuisance abatement order against Republic Services, the second in five years.
If approved by an AQMD Hearing Board, the order would cut the dump’s daily intake of trash by a third, lop off three morning hours of operation and require improved covers to control garbage gases.
The hearings are scheduled to resume Oct. 25.
Last week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed a motion requiring county agencies look at ways to control the stench that residents say has made them sick or forced them to shut their doors.
The motion, filed by Supervisor Michael Antonovich, called upon county health officials to consider issuing notices of violation. It also directed county planners to review the landfill conditional-use permit to identify “enforcement tools to eliminate landfill odors.”
Englander’s motion asks that the city attorney, with help from other city departments and the Sunshine Canyon Landfill Local Enforcement Agency, support the county public health investigation and also consider any potential enforcement action.
Republic Services is fighting the proposed air district regulations that would divert thousands of tons of Los Angeles trash each day to distant dumps via hundreds of trucks, adding to the region’s traffic and air pollution. Critics, however, contend the greatest source of greenhouse gases, such as methane, come from landfills.
To read the full story, visit http://www.dailynews.com/environment-and-nature/20161011/la-city-councilman-calls-for-crackdown-on-sunshine-canyon-landfill-smell.