Just weeks after Chiquita Canyon Landfill evacuated in response to the Hughes Fire in January, residents learned last week the facility is looking into an on-site treatment facility for its ongoing leachate problems.
The discussion of the potential plans came up during the Feb. 19 Castaic Area Town Council meeting during the group’s monthly Chiquita Canyon Landfill update and questions from residents.
A resident asked why the facility was seeking a conditional authorization request from the county’s Fire Department and the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control.
Town Council President Bob Lewis said he had looked into the question and learned Chiquita Canyon Landfill is looking to mitigate its risks with leachate transportation, Lewis told the group during the virtual meeting.
“The brief conversation that I did have with Steve (Cassulo, general manager for Chiquita Canyon Landfill), it was to do the treatment on site,” said Lewis, who represents the neighborhoods of Meadowood, Bravo, Encore and Castaic east of Interstate 5 and south of Lake Hughes Road.
Local leachate
Lewis said there were two reasons given.
“Part of the reason for doing that was first of all so that they’re not transporting materials,” Lewis said, adding Cassulo mentioned the danger if a truck accident occurred. “But the other thing is the difficulty of finding other facilities that can take the amount of leachate that they’re dealing with that may be considered hazardous.”
A representative for Chiquita Canyon Landfill confirmed the ongoing discussion Monday but added there’s no permit request at this time.
“Chiquita is working with its regulators to establish a new location for its on-site leachate treatment and determine whether any approvals are necessary for the new location,” according to a text message sent Monday afternoon by John Musella on behalf of Chiquita Canyon.
The question of who could or would permit such a facility was posed directly to Todd Sax, a
senior enforcement adviser for the state’s EPA, during the Town Council meeting. The state Environmental Protection Agency representative was acting as the lead for the Multi-agency Critical Action Team, which is leading the local, state and federal response to the landfill’s crisis.
He had to acknowledge the unique scenario for such permitting.
“Well, I think we don’t have a full answer to that question yet,” Sax said, when asked about the approval process for an on-site leachate-treatment facility.
In addition to the U.S. EPA, the task force includes CalEPA and four of its entities, CalRecycle, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, and the California Air Resources Board; the South Coast Air Quality Management District; and the Los Angeles County Departments of Public Works, Public Health and Planning, according to the agency’s website for the incident.
“It’s a combination of both a state and a local issue,” Sax said, adding it was largely a county issue, “and so this is part of the coordination we’re doing with county staff, the various county departments.”
Hughes Fire
Sax also said the Hughes Fire prompted the agencies involved to take a closer look at what could happen in an emergency.
Cassulo shared an updated with Lewis that was shared at the council meeting:
“As the Hughes Fire expanded, Chiquita evacuated all personnel from the landfill on the morning of Jan. 22, consistent with the regulatory warning and the risk to human health,” according to the update that was shared with The Signal.
“Because Chiquita could not anticipate the duration of the evacuation, before leaving the site, Chiquita personnel implemented several preemptive measures to ensure that the landfill remained in a holding pattern until personnel could safely return to the facility. These preemptive measures included switching to generator power before leaving the site, leaving key perimeter sumps on to contain outflows and reduce the potential for leachate seeps, and working to obtain an extra 24 hours’ worth of space in the leachate tank farm,” he said.
Cassulo added that landfill staff were permitted to return at approximately 3:30 a.m. Jan. 23.
“We want to make sure we learn from the Hughes Fire and ensure the contingency plan for future emergencies are adequate for the full scope of what can happen,” Sax said. “The Hughes Fire is maybe not a wakeup call but a trigger for us to start looking at those issues.”
What’s next
A 5th District community liaison for the Fire Department referred a request for comment on the potential for such a permit to the agency’s Health Hazardous Materials Division, which referred questions to the Santa Clarita office for the Fire Prevention Division, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Zana Zmily, lead scientist for the Department of Toxic Substances Control, said during the discussion the leachate is already treated on the site before it’s tanked off site for treatment.
The treated leachate would still need to be tanked off site, Zmily added.
Sax also said during the meeting that the agencies’ conversations were aimed at permanent, long-term plans, as the official closing of the landfill would be a yearslong process for which Chiquita Canyon would be responsible.
The latest report from the South Coast Air Quality Management District at the Feb. 19 meeting contained both good and bad news: While the landfill was garnering around 2,000 complaints per month toward the end of last year, the latest data indicates there have only been 650 this year as of about the first six weeks.
However, the data also indicates there’s been a recent spike in the smell, with 168 complaints in all of January, and then more than 480 through the first half of February and 129 on Feb. 17, two days before the meeting, according to the AQMD.
Larry Israel, supervising inspector for the AQMD, said at the meeting that since April 2023, when the problems began to be noticed by the community, there have been 27,278 complaints and 310 nuisance violations.
“Our (South Coast District) Hearing Board in Diamond Bar will conduct the next full-status hearing on Wednesday, April 16,” Israel said. “That will be a full-status hearing and public testimony will be taken and we’re working on maybe imposing some additional modifications to the existing stipulated order for abatement.”
The agenda for the April meeting has not yet been posted on the South Coast District Hearing Board website as of Monday.
