KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
Story by Halie Cook of SCV News
Activists from three Santa Clarita Valley groups attended Tuesday’s Los Angeles Board of Supervisors meeting to ask for another public hearing on the Environmental Impact Report for the expansion of the Chiquita Canyon landfill.
Sponsored Articles
During the public commentary multiple community members asked that the Chiquita Canyon Landfill master plan revision draft EIR be allowed a public hearing with all Regional Planning Commissioners present before the final report is released.
“The project is to go before the planning commission this year, where there is public comment and public testimony,” said county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, in response to residents’ concerns.
Antonovich also said more hearings were planned regarding the landfill expansion, and county staffers are working to be responsive to public input.
“The commissioners don’t have any time to change anything and we don’t have the opportunity to make suggestions to say this is a really good idea, “ said Lynne Plambeck, SCOPE president. “Legally, we don’t even have the opportunity to respond to what they would say. The Final EIR gives the community only 10 days.”
The landfill is currently bringing in about 6,000 pounds of garbage per day, and Chiquita Canyon is seeking to eventually double that number with its expansion plan.
Residents expressed opposition to the landfill due to health and environmental concerns, with many residents citing serious health problems due to the landfill’s proximity to their homes.
“Our children play 900 feet from that landfill and our town starts 900 feet from that landfill,” said Steve Lee from the Val Verde Civic Association. “Val Verde had a vote, 100 percent of residents voted against the expansion the way it is written.”
The Chiquita Canyon Landfill is located on Highway 126 and a current contract with the city of Val Verde held plans to close the landfill in 2019.
“A public hearing on the DEIR was conducted by the Department of Regional Planning in Castaic in July 2014 and the Regional Planning Commission will hold another public hearing on the project this year in the Santa Clarita Valley. The County of Los Angeles is currently reviewing the hundreds of pages of public comment and will address all questions and concerns in the Final EIR,” said Chiquita Canyon Spokesman John Musella in a previous statement. “In addition, Chiquita Canyon pro-actively provided a presentation to the Val Verde Civic Association a month prior to the public release of the DEIR in order to give the community plenty of time to review the project. We also participated in dozens of community meetings across the Santa Clarita Valley to various organizations and groups before and during the public review process.”
Do you have a news tip? Call us at (661) 298-1220, or drop us a line at community@hometownstation.com.
This issue majorly impacts the health of Val Verde residents, and minorly impacts the health of Castaic residents, which makes all of the other cities meeting’s results irrelevant. Invite all the residents of Val Verde, Castaic, the Santa Clarita Valley and, Canyon Country to the meetings in Val Verde and you will have more legitimate responses to your “public review process”.
Majorly Impacts the health of residents? The landfill is filled with the trash from YOUR trash bins, that came out of YOUR home. Where do you propose “they” (we the citizens) put the trash?
This is about expansion of the current facility, not shutting down the operations. There is a lot of trash that is imported from other areas outside the SCV that use Chiquita as well. 53 foot trash haulers come in from surrounding areas on the hour each day that are stuffed with material from commercial / industrial roll-off containers, so there is a lot more trash coming in in addition to the standard local haulers such as Waste Management / Allied / Blue Barrel trucks that also deliver there hundreds of times on a daily basis.