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[GreenYes] Los Angeles Advisory Panel Recommends Incineration
Los Angeles Times October 18, 2002 Friday
California Metro; Part 2; Page 4
Wendy Thermos, Times Staff Writer

   Los Angeles should stop using Sunshine Canyon Landfill in June 2006
and turn to new technologies to dispose of trash, a mayoral advisory
panel said Thursday.

   The findings by the landfill oversight committee represent the first
official attempt to put a deadline on ending the city's use of the
landfill near Granada Hills.

   The dump is a source of irritation for many San Fernando Valley
residents because of the dust, noise and litter generated by trucks
hauling the more than 3,000 tons of trash collected daily from around
the city.

   The committee will recommend that the city use  waste-to-energy
conversion,  large-scale composting and trash-eating bacteria to
eliminate as much garbage as possible from the waste stream.

   Anything that cannot be diverted, the committee said, should be
shipped to landfills outside the city by rail.

   The committee did not assess whether garbage rates would increase as
a result of the recommendations.

   Browning-Ferris Industries, which operates Sunshine Canyon Landfill,
has repeatedly said that residents will see higher bills if the city
stops using the dump.

   The panel's findings will be forwarded within days to Mayor James K.
Hahn, who will need the consent of the City Council to carry them out.

   The mayor has pledged repeatedly to close the Sunshine Canyon dump
and also Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley, which takes commercial waste
but receives none of the trash collected by city sanitation trucks.

   Committee members noted that Sunshine Canyon would still be able to
receive trash from sources outside the city after 2006.   But they said
Los Angeles needs to end the practice of forcing Valley neighborhoods to
absorb the trash burden generated by residents throughout the city.

   "We need to say to the city, 'You will find someplace else to put our
trash,' " said committee member Mary Edwards. "It's important, because
it's killing our  neighborhoods."

   Edwards persuaded the committee to release its findings before the
Nov. 5 vote on Valley secession.

   "These are strong recommendations," she said. "I think people want to
know the city's stand on this issue before they vote."

-

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