Now that Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic has been closed due to pollution problems, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors began dealing with how to mitigate the loss of a facility that received roughly one-third of the county’s waste last year.
The closure of the landfill also prompted residents to again protest outside a county board meeting, once again asking L.A. County 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger to declare a state of emergency over the crisis.
But the county’s first move involved figuring out where to put all the trash slated for Chiquita Canyon — which took in close to 3 million tons in 2023.
Barger’s motion Tuesday called for a comprehensive look at the impacts of the closure, and the motion was approved unanimously on the consent calendar.
“We are gratified that the owners of the landfill have decided to close it. This is a step in the right direction. But there are still thousands of people that are impacted, suffering from health issues, unable to live in their homes and unable to send their kids to the local schools,” Oshea Orchid, spokeswoman for one of many groups suing the landfill, wrote in a text from the protest downtown. “The only way to address this is for the Board of Supervisors to immediately declare a state of emergency and put in motion the full power of local, state and federal government assistance to get fast, effective relief to residents.”
Chiquita Canyon Landfill has had excessive amounts of landfill gases, and leachate, a putrid byproduct of rotting trash and rain, impacting residents’ health for more than two years. The landfill’s problems are related to an elevated temperature event, which is burning subsurface trash at approximately 250 degrees and causing the landfill to sink at a faster than usual rate. There’s also been no cause determined and estimates have been given saying the problem could last a decade.
The landfill event and Chiquita’s response were cited as the reasons why the facility was denied the ability to expand last year, which was the reason the landfill gave for its sudden closure last week.
On the last line of a Dec. 31 letter from Waste Connections announcing the facility’s closure that day, the company said it “remains committed to working with federal, state, regional and local authorities to protect public health and to continue addressing (the landfill event).”
A rate discussion at the meeting raised separate concerns over the cost impact for waste-haulers who will have to find new routes and means of disposal. And how those costs would be passed on to ratepayers.
Barger’s office did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment or questions about whether Santa Clarita Valley ratepayers in unincorporated areas would be affected by new franchise agreements with waste-haulers. The county solicited the agreements back in June and accepted six in August.
The city of Santa Clarita has said it expects to discuss new plans with Burrtec on the next City Council agenda, which could have impacts for ratepayers within city limits.
A lobbying group for waste-management companies estimated the impact of closing Chiquita Canyon at $8 to $10 per residential customer, per month, throughout L.A. County.
While news of the closure brought some gratitude from those who have been plagued by the smells, it also renewed concerns from those who’ve said the landfill is not doing enough to help those impacted, particularly now that the landfill’s financial incentive has been removed.
In a statement after the closure, Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, who introduced legislation to make the landfill’s compensation to residents tax-free, referred to the closure as a victory, but not the finish line.
“While the end of incoming trash means that you will no longer smell the odor of new trash being added to the site, there is still much to be done to address the underground 40-acre fire that will likely be burning for many years,” she wrote in a news release Dec. 31. “Now, we must focus on this ongoing disaster to ensure the landfill operator upholds its contractual obligations and follows state laws to ensure the long-term stability of the landfill in addition to addressing the public health and environmental disaster that remains.”
