By Jim Holt
Signal Senior Staff Writer
County officials paying close attention to what gets dumped, and how much gets dumped, at Chiquita Canyon Landfill are getting some help monitoring the operation — up to $4.5 million worth of monitoring.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion to hire an environmental company for up to $410,813 a year to assist the county in monitoring the Chiquita Canyon Landfill for at least five years, an amount not to exceed $4.518 million.
The extra monitoring costs are to be borne by the owner of the landfill, Chiquita Canyon LLC.
The company hired to carry out the work is Irvine-based UltraSystems Environmental Inc.
In 2017, when the county permitted Chiquita Canyon LLC to continue using the land as a landfill, it came with the condition that an independent consultant would be brought in to monitor the landfill operation until July 25, 2047, when the contract expires.
The five-year contract can be renewed each year for an additional five years.
The monitoring work can be suspended at any time, however, by the county’s director of regional planning if he believes it is in the best interest of the county.
In a letter from the Department of Regional Planning to Los Angeles County supervisors, payment is spelled out as: “This contract is funded entirely by the landfill operator, Chiquita Canyon LLC, through a trust account established by the operator.”