L.A. County 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger is calling on the Board of Supervisors to support two bills authored by Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, in the wake of the noxious odors emanating from the Chiquita Canyon Landfill.
“The ongoing odor incident, by which a noxious odor is being emitted by the landfill, has significantly affected quality of life for residents of the surrounding communities,” reads Barger’s motion that is set to be voted on at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.
Both bills were recently advanced to the Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, where the fiscal impacts of each bill will be weighed.
“Together, these bills seek to support residents impacted by the (Chiquita landfill) odor incident and help prevent future incidents from occurring,” Barger’s motion reads.
Barger is the chair of the Board of Supervisors and represents the Santa Clarita Valley.
Residents living nearby in Val Verde and Castaic have reported deeply concerning health symptoms as a result of the subsurface reaction at the 639-acre Chiquita landfill and the odors emanating from it, including chronic nosebleeds, migraines, tremors, sight loss, brain fog, difficulty breathing and respiratory problems, Schiavo said during the Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee hearing for Assembly Bill 28, also known as the Landfill Safety Act, on April 28.
The motion comes just a few weeks after state Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares, R-Acton, called on state officials to help affected residents of Castaic, Val Verde and other nearby communities. She authored a letter calling on Attorney General Rob Bonta to attach the state to the county’s lawsuit against Chiquita on behalf of residents, a move that was later applauded by Barger.
The county’s lawsuit, filed in December, seeks to address ongoing environmental and public health hazards caused by a persistent underground chemical reaction at the landfill, which has emitted noxious odors, hazardous gases, and toxic leachate into nearby communities for nearly two years, according to a release from Barger’s office.
Assembly Bill 27 would seek to exclude gross income from any “Chiquita Canyon elevated temperature event payment amount received by a taxpayer.” The tax exemption would begin on Jan. 1, 2024, and end on Dec. 1, 2029, as the bill is currently written.
The Landfill Safety Act is directed toward preventing a similar situation from occurring elsewhere. If signed into law, it would require landfill operators to: alert nearby residents and local enforcement when subsurface temperatures exceed 146 degrees for over 60 consecutive days; submit a corrective action plan within 14 days of high temperatures; trigger a multi-agency response team if temperatures continue rising, ensuring timely coordination and oversight; face penalties and potential loss of permits for failure to act.
The bill would also create the Landfill Subsurface Fire Mitigation Account so penalty funds can go to support impacted communities for things like relocation, home hardening, and other impacts from burning landfills.
The issues at the Chiquita landfill stem from a subsurface reaction that has yet to have a root cause identified by state officials despite a task force of county, state and federal officials citing daily efforts for years.
The Chiquita landfill and its parent company, Waste Connections, claimed in February the incident was improving, and subsequently ended its assistance program that had given out approximately $25 million over 12 months.
However, state officials reported in March that the landfill’s reaction area has reportedly doubled in size since those efforts began, with the entire canyon possibly threatened in the future.
Three significant issues have come about as a result of the reaction: a settling issue causing the landfill to collapse on itself at a rate of more than 1 foot per month; the production of leachate greater than 1 million gallons per month, which is causing storage and treatment challenges; and nauseating odors that have drawn more than 28,000 complaints.
Valladares has stated she plans to introduce a bill that would exempt impacted residents from paying property taxes.
Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting is set to begin at 9:30 a.m. in hearing room 381B at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, located at 500 W. Temple St. in downtown Los Angeles. To view the meeting online, go to tinyurl.com/yn8mazy7.
