Trash Is a Local Issue

Trash happens. And whenever public officials need to find a place to put it, controversy happens too. There’s a role for everyone in making these two facts of life easier to live with.

Consumers and businesses can do their part by recycling paper, metal, cardboard and glass; by composting yard trimmings, and by shopping smarter to avoid purchases with more throwaway packaging than useful product.

City and county governments are responsible for locating landfills where they will do the least harm--and making sure proper steps are taken to minimize their impact on surrounding areas.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted last week to shift monitoring of operations at Toland Road Landfill from an independent contractor to county staff. There’s no question that employees of the county planning department and agricultural commissioner’s office have the expertise to gauge the severity of the landfill’s impact on surrounding areas, especially on nearby citrus and avocado orchards. But the agricultural commissioner’s office, in particular, is already struggling to keep up with its workload.

We encourage the supervisors and the Ventura Regional Sanitation District, the public agency that owns the dump, to augment the agricultural commissioner’s staff budget so this extra duty will not undermine the other important work of this office.

Toland landfill has been accepting most of the trash from western Ventura County for many years. The amount increased tenfold after Bailard Landfill in Oxnard closed in 1996. Much has been done to control the problems of dust, odor, birds and blowing debris that make life miserable and farming more difficult for neighbors of this 160-acre site just north of California 126 between Santa Paula and Fillmore. An anemometer at the site clocks wind speed and landfill operators have orders to shut down when the wind tops 15 mph.

But more could be done, and should. Much of the dust--which coats the leaves of fruit trees and interferes with farmers’ commendable efforts to control pests with beneficial bugs--results from hundreds of garbage trucks roaring in and out along unpaved roads. The Sanitation District periodically sprays water on the roads to hold the dust down, but paving the road would be a more effective solution.

We urge the district to pave that road and to reduce dust from landfill hillsides by landscaping and irrigating those areas as soon as possible. The one-time expense of paving, estimated at $150,000, would be a wise investment in neighborhood goodwill, and it would eliminate the expense and air pollution of the water spraying trucks and allow haulers to enter and leave more quickly.

A larger concern about Toland Road raised last week is the amount of trash being imported into Ventura County from Santa Barbara County. Under a political deal cut years ago, Toland is committed to accept a certain amount of garbage from the city of Carpinteria. Although there is some disagreement over the amount permitted, a much larger concern is what might happen if a vigorous campaign succeeds in closing a major landfill in Santa Barbara County. Rather than deal with its own trash problems locally, Santa Barbara County could be looking to ship more of its garbage to Toland or the privately operated Simi Valley Landfill or through Ventura County to the Chiquita Landfill in Los Angeles County in the Newhall Ranch area.

Supervisor Kathy Long has sent a letter to Santa Barbara County supervisors cautioning that Ventura County would have serious objections to any of those plans. Recent moves by the nation’s fourth-largest trash-disposal firm, Republic Services Inc., to expand its operations in this area could complicate the picture. Republic has purchased the Del Norte Regional Recycling Center in Oxnard.

It is crucial not to get so focused on the Toland dust that we miss the larger threat. Although Ventura County would be delighted to help Santa Barbara County handle any excess of tourists or shoppers, its garbage should rightly be disposed of within its own boundaries.