Englander Seeks Alternative to Sunshine Canyon Landfill

L.A. City Councilmember Mitchell Englander feels it’s time for the city to find a backup landfill for its solid waste, considering the continual complaints against the Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Sylmar. On Friday, Englander, whose district includes Granada Hills which borders Sylmar, formally asked the City Council to start the hunt for an alternate landfill and to start developing a legal strategy to address the surrounding community’s related health issues. The landfill at 14747 San Fernando Road, owned and operated by Republic Services Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Browning-Ferris Industries of California Inc., has incurred several thousand complaints over the past seven years, Englander said. Last month, the L.A. County Department of Public Health sent the owner a public nuisance violation for odors it said are affecting residents’ health, according to news reports. “Given the County Health Department’s assessment of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill odors affecting the health of residents, it is unconscionable that the city should continue to dump its trash there,” Englander said in a statement. Many of the complaints about the odors were made by the staff at the Van Gogh Charter School at 17160 Van Gogh St., Granada Hills, just under 2 miles from the landfill. In addition to the health department’s notice, the South Coast Air Quality Management District was recently granted the right to require the owner to take action to lessen odors, including changing its morning hours so trucks don’t unload until after 9 a.m. on weekdays and to provide third-party odor monitoring at the school in the morning The company has denied the odor allegations, saying that its methods of collecting the landfill gases effectively destroys them and the odors. The business also says its surface emissions comply with federal requirements and those of the air quality district, and that the complaints are from a small number of people. According to Englander, the city’s current contract with Republic Services for 3,000-plus tons a day of solid waste extends till June 30 of 2021. The 1,036-acre landfill is both a solid waste landfill and a recycling site and collects waste on 363 acres. It accepts one-third of L.A. County’s daily waste, and serves 13 million people, according to Republic’s website.