KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
Chiquita Canyon has been working to produce a new Conditional Use Permit, which would allow the landfill to expand past its current 23 million ton limits after reaching those limits in June.
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In the meantime, the county has approved a “clean hands waiver” that allows the dump to continue operating while the new permit is being processed.
“In anticipation of reaching this limit (of 23 million tons), the Director of Regional Planning granted us a limited waiver that prevents the temporary closure of the landfill before the necessary public hearings for the EIR and new CUP are completed,” according to a news release from the landfill management.
The waiver includes appropriate limitations and conditions on the landfills continued operation during this period, but allows Chiquita Canyon to accept waste beyond the 23 million ton overall cap, so long as the footprint and height of the permitted landfill area are not expanded and other interim operating conditions are met.
The waiver is intended solely as a stop-gap measure to avoid a temporary shut-down of the landfill.
Get live news updates about Santa Clarita by following KHTS on Facebook and KHTS on TwitterThe interim operating authority would be superseded by the new Conditional Use Permit, or CUP, when and if it is approved by the County.
If the new CUP is not approved, then the landfill will close.
The waiver does not result in new environmental impacts or substantial increases in the severity of environmental impacts previously identified in the Environmental Impact Report certified by the Board of Supervisors in 1997.
In addition, all the regular monthly, bi-monthly, semi-annual, and annual monitoring and reporting required by the more than two dozen regulatory agencies that oversee our safe operations will continue as usual.
The letter of waiver to Chiquita Canyon, noted, “We find that the interim continuation of landfill operations is consistent with General Plan Policy PS/F 5.1 which states ‘Maintain an efficient, safe and responsive waste management system that reduces waste while protecting the health and safety of the public.”
Ed. Note: This is a news release provided by Chiquita Canyon Landfill.
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Could it be that the 10% that the county or roughly 700,000 a year affected that decision? They have not been able to produce a clean hands waiver as of yet. They did send us a decision they made yesterday after the press release. The decision is, to close down the landfill would be unsafe because the trucks would have to turn around. There are phones and you could actually call them before they came to your landfill, or you could send out a mass email. The other reason was it would cost more money to deliver trash else where and the other landfill do not have enough room. That is a poor argument since there is a glut of landfills and they are all in a bidding war. Orange county trucks pass 3 landfills to get to this one, they are not charging their customers more for that. The fact is for 19 years no one ever looked for a new location. Well that’s not true there are landfills that have no trash just sitting empty. We as tax payers paid for those too.
Ok I don’t’ have to read the whole thing to know there are some funny things going on. They are supposed to give running totals on their reports and they never have. One of our residents crunched the numbers and Monday, July 25th it was brought to the attention of Steve Cassulo, who is the head honcho at Chiquita Canyon Landfill, that the dump was over the limit. He did not know that and said the dump has no plans to shut down. So who is covering for who? They could have made phone calls to their customers (of which they won’t let Val Verde see) to tell them they have to shut down because they are over the limit, and given like oh I don’t know a two week notice. Whose safety are they really concerned with. Not Val Verde residents who live 800 feet from the landfill, unlike other landfills who are 1 or more miles away from homes. The supervisors must really want their cut of the fees paid by customers and they don’t care about the violations, just the money.
Clean Hands Waiver that a county cannot produce. Today they came out and changed their story to say that yesterday they are allowing the landfill to continue for many reasons, but one was that it was to dangerous for trucks to turn around. They don’t have too, they have something called a telephone and the landfill can call their clients and tell them they are shut down. The other excuse was there was no room for the trash in the other landfills. Sacramento says there is a huge glut of landfills. No emergency here, just a landfill that bought a county at about $700,000 a month. That is not counting the tonnage that does not go on the books because it is ground cover.
Why can’t anyone see this supposed waiver. When the public asked for it, it wasn’t available. And why was it granted “in anticipation” of reaching their maximum? Shouldn’t they have made plans to close in anticipation reaching their maixum? What is going on here? Obviously the community is not being protected in favor of a large waste comp[any. There are other places this waste could go.
Quit being such a bunch of NIMBY’s…. Why until this happened did no one make any mention? I would appear that the Community Advisory Committee was asleep at the wheel. This is merely one of the many types of infrastructure items the area will face as it continues expanding in population and business. Your own city planners have not done well for you.
It was to be closed some time ago, SO CLOSE IT! Why are we to be the dumping ground of the entire
County???!! Who’s Antonovich working for? Maybe closing Chiquita Canyon Dump could be HIS Legacy!!!