Air quality monitors at Chiquita Canyon Landfill expected late November

A trash truck dumps its load at the Chiquita Land Fill in Castaic in 2018. Dan Watson/The Signal
A trash truck dumps its load at the Chiquita Land Fill in Castaic in 2018. Dan Watson/The Signal
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Equipment used to monitor air quality at the Chiquita Canyon Landfill is expected to be  up and running by late November or early December, according to Los Angeles County planning officials.

Details of the plan to monitor air quality at the landfill near Val Verde were unveiled Wednesday, when members of the landfill’s Technical Advisory Committee met with regional planners in Alhambra.

They looked at how monitoring air quality at the site would be done once it gets underway.

“We expect that the initial (air monitoring) installations will occur in November and December,” said Mitch Glaser, spokesman for the county Department of Regional Planning.

“The consultant provided a presentation regarding the progress and methodology of the air quality monitoring plan,” he said, of the meeting.

“There are no air quality monitoring results available yet because the air quality monitoring plan has not been implemented,” Glaser said Thursday.

The monitoring devices have been ordered, but have not arrived yet. 

“When they arrive, they will be installed as soon as possible,” Glaser said.

“The monitoring devices will not arrive all at once, so a small number will be installed initially, and the number will gradually increase over time as the monitoring devices arrive,” he said.

Reached for comment Thursday about the technical advisory board meeting, Chiquita Canyon Landfill spokesman John Musella said he had nothing to add.

In January, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion to hire UltraSystems — 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.

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.

Taking part in Wednesday’s status updates were representatives of the county’s Fire Department, the Department of Regional Planning, Department of Public Works and the Department of Public Health.

The committee was also given an update on a health study being done at the site called the Community Health Assessment Study.

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