By Perry Smith and Katherine Quezada
Chiquita Canyon Landfill officials said a pair of in-person informational sessions hosted at Val Verde Park and Castaic Library, respectively, on Friday and Saturday drew hundreds who sought more information about their relief program.
The seminars followed residents’ requests for more information and transparency about the help available from the landfill’s community relief fund at the May meeting of the Chiquita Canyon Landfill Advisory Committee.
“We appreciated the opportunity last weekend to be able to work with approximately 200 neighbors and get them enrolled in Chiquita Landfill Community Relief program,” according to a statement from the landfill issued Wednesday. “Given the success of these efforts, we plan to host additional information sessions later this month to further support the local community through this process.”
John Musella, spokesman for Chiquita Canyon, said the landfill was planning to release its latest numbers on how many have been helped by the landfill’s relief fund at an informational meeting scheduled for Thursday.
Chiquita Canyon is hosting a virtual community meeting to “discuss current updates and odor-mitigation efforts at the landfill,” according to the landfill’s odor-mitigation page on its website.
The most recent numbers available as of early May indicated that 123 residents have received aid from the landfill relief fund in its first two months of operation, and a total of $227,300 in aid has been distributed.
The funds ranged from a few hundred dollars for those farthest out to several thousand dollars for those most impacted, according to John Perkey, vice president of landfill owner Waste Connections and its legal counsel.
Several residents at the relief fund information sessions agreed to discuss their situations on condition of anonymity, including a Val Verde woman who said in Spanish that she wanted to see if she would be offered enough money to move away until the problem was resolved. She also had questions about whether the landfill could be closed, she said.
Two others said they had concerns about their rising air conditioning bill, as the smell has required them to keep their windows closed most of the time.
A resident named Sandy said she’s lived in Castaic for 22 years, and never had a problem until 2022, when she began having trouble breathing, allergy problems and of course, concerns about the stench, she said.
The landfill is averaging about 2,000 complaints per month.
One of the relief-fund concerns mentioned by Jeremiah Dockray, a member of the advisory committee, in discussing the application process, is whether a resident could be submitting information that could be “used against them” in a future deposition. The landfill is facing lawsuits from hundreds of plaintiffs over the impacts from the landfill, which are being argued in both local and federal courts.
At the May advisory committee meeting, Perkey said in his role it would be inappropriate for him to comment on whether information submitted by residents could ultimately be used against them in court.
“Guys, that’s a response,” Dockray said to the crowd after a few comments could be heard, “and so that’s fine — just wanted to also have that be in your head, too.”
