The Los Angeles Water Boards on Tuesday became the latest agency to cite the Chiquita Canyon Landfill for violations related to hazardous leachate being put into the Santa Clara River.
The incident that sparked the violation occurred Nov. 14, when an error attributed to an employee at the Waste Connections facility resulted in 8,000 gallons of untreated leachate leaking from a pipe at the landfill.
Chiquita Canyon notified the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board staff that day of the “characteristically hazardous leachate on the top deck of the landfill. The leachate-comingled stormwater was pumped into the stormwater channel that flows into the East Basin where it remained (at the time),” according to the State Water Board’s letter Tuesday.
But, in a subsequent storm, the leachate-comingled stormwater then flowed out of the basin and, ultimately, to the river.
In December, Kate Logan, a senior remediation manager for Chiquita, shared the landfill’s plan at the Chiquita Canyon Landfill Community Advisory Committee meeting: Let the leachate evaporate and then test the soil, due to the fact that it had leaked to and then pooled in a hard-to-access area.
The response plan drew a number of community concerns during the December meeting and it had prompted a Nov. 18 violation notice from the Department of Toxic Substances Control.
“Chiquita Canyon Landfill took six samples of the pond after the release occurred on Nov. 14. Benzene was not detected in any of the samples. (The Department of Toxic Substances Control) issued violations to the landfill on Nov. 18, which included a violation for the leachate release,” according to the statement, which was sent to The Signal in December by Albert Lundeen, deputy director for the DTSC’s office of communications, in response to questions about the violation.
The statement did not indicate the extent of the testing. A spokeswoman for the DTSC referred questions to the Los Angeles Water Board on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Water Board wrote Wednesday via email that the agency does not comment on active enforcement cases in response to questions about the extent of what may have been detected.
What is clear, based on theLos Angeles Water Board letter, is that the hazardous leachate did not evaporate before recent rains pushed the water into Castaic Creek and then the Santa Clara River.
The Los Angeles water board staff inspected the landfill prior to a forecasted storm event on Dec. 22, according to the Los Angeles Water Board:
“During the storm event that occurred from Dec. 23-26, 2025, the leachate-comingled stormwater overtopped the installed berm and filled up the area behind the installed barrier (Photos 3-4). On Dec. 29, 2025, CCL staff heard water from the East Basin flowing through the barrier into the stormwater channel that flows into Castaic Creek. Castaic Creek flows into Reach 5 of the Santa Clara River.”
Pursuant to state law, the discharger, according to the letter, could be liable to a fine of up to $10,000 per day for the violations in the letter.
A spokesman for Chiquita Canyon Landfill declined to comment on this story when reached for comment Wednesday.
The L.A. County Department of Public Health has a community survey available for residents who are experiencing impacts from the landfill. As of Jan. 7, the county’s page has received nearly 1,500 submissions. More than 650 participants reported smelling the odor daily, and headaches were by far the most commonly reported impact (734).
The survey is available at: bit.ly/ChiquitaHealthSurvey.
