Environmental Group Cites Landfill's AIDS Threat : Ojai: Foes of a proposed dump say sea gulls might spread the disease. The county says this would be very unlikely.

Environmental Group Cites Landfill’s AIDS Threat : Ojai: Foes of a proposed dump say sea gulls might spread the disease. The county says this would be very unlikely.

By HUGO MARTIN

June 11, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

In addition to other concerns over a proposed landfill near Ojai, an environmental group has raised the specter that sea gulls might be able to spread AIDS by carrying used condoms from the dump to nearby neighborhoods.

While condoms and untreated medical waste can end up in the dump, county officials said they have consulted with medical experts who believe that the risk of infection from acquired immune deficiency syndrome to landfill workers, visitors to the dump or nearby residents is slim to none.

“The landfill would not create a threat to the surrounding area,” said Scott Ellison, a county planner who is overseeing an environmental report on the Weldon Canyon dump project.

The county hired medical experts to address the question of AIDS transmission at the dump, Ellison said. Because the HIV virus associated with AIDS is short-lived outside of the body, the county’s study concluded that “the risk of HIV infection to landfill workers or visitors would appear to be only theoretical.”

“I don’t even think that there is a one in a billion chance” of getting AIDS from landfill waste, said Richard Peterson, a spokesman for AIDS Care, a nonprofit AIDS support group in Ventura.

He said the virus associated with AIDS dies within half an hour of contact with air. “So, in a landfill the virus would be good and dead,” he said.

The contention that the dump might play a role in spreading AIDS was raised by the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County.

“Condoms are a thing you see on the way to a dump,” said Pat Baggerly, a member of the group, which submitted 118 comments and questions about the proposed dump.

“It is not a far-out comment,” she added.

To strengthen the argument that sea gulls can carry AIDS-infected waste, Baggerly cited numerous complaints from residents near Oxnard’s Bailard Landfill who complain about sea gulls carrying chicken bones and other garbage from the dump to nearby neighborhoods.

“The county is going to have to address the possibility of infected material being transported,” Baggerly said.

The concern will be addressed by county planning officials along with 655 other comments that residents and public agencies have raised about the Weldon Canyon Landfill project over the past four months. The Ventura County Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors will consider the landfill this fall.

Waste Management of North America Inc., the proposed developer of the dump about a mile east of California 33 and north of Canada Larga Road, hopes to begin operating the landfill by 1992.

The proposal, however, has ignited criticism from environmentalists and some residents in the Ojai Valley, who worry that the dump will increase traffic and air pollution in the area.

A 1,475-page environmental study was completed in February to address all the environmental side effects and alternatives to the project. A committee of top county staff members is considering the study, which includes medical testimony that the risk of AIDS transmission via garbage removed from the dump is “only theoretical.”

James Jevens, manager of the proposed project, said some people may consider the AIDS concern a “scare tactic” by the coalition. But he said Waste Management will address all concerns about the dump “even if it may be a little bit out of the norm.”

In its report on the dump, the coalition cited an article by Dr. Lorraine Day, a former chief of orthopedic surgery at San Francisco General Hospital.

In the article, Day stated that the medical community has been underestimating the dangers of contracting the AIDS virus, according to the coalition report.

“The EIR says that ‘no documented case of HIV infection has occurred through environmental transmission,’ but Dr. Day says this is possible, in blood saliva, semen and urine or in a dry state,” the coalition report said.

Day, however, has been under harsh criticism by other doctors and gay activists for exaggerating the dangers of contracting the fatal disease.

Stephen Bennet, chief executive officer of AIDS Project Los Angeles, has accused Day of “fanning the flames of public hysteria,” and Mark Wang, a spokesman for the gay-activist group ACT-UP in San Francisco, has called her an “AIDS-phobe.”

In addition to raising the possibility that condom-carrying sea gulls could spread AIDS from the dump, the coalition report also said that construction of a dump at Weldon Canyon could drive hungry black bears to look for food in nearby neighborhoods.

“Black bears can--and are likely to--maul the human inhabitants, especially children who might be playing in such places as lower Canada Larga Creek, immediately adjacent to Norway Drive,” according to the coalition report.

While Elison said the entire wooded region between Ventura and Ojai is known to be home for a wide range of animal life, he said studies have found no bears living in the Weldon Canyon site.