OJAI : City Council Backs Different Dump Site

The Ojai City Council has endorsed a plan by a group of property owners that would shift the location of the proposed Weldon Canyon landfill a few miles away to Hammond Canyon.

The unanimous vote this week was largely ceremonial, however, because both potential landfill sites lie outside the city of Ojai and are out of the council’s jurisdiction.

But the Ojai Valley Clean Air Assn., which sponsored the study, said the council’s approval was essential as part of its effort to persuade county officials that placing a landfill at Weldon Canyon would be environmentally harmful and too expensive.

“We want to show the county that our valley is united in support of Hammond,” said Carl Huntsinger, the group’s spokesman.

The Weldon Canyon site is located between Ventura and Ojai near California 33. Hammond Canyon is about 4 1/2 miles northeast of Weldon Canyon.

The association study found that a prevailing air flow would force pollution from a Weldon Canyon site into the Ojai Valley.

The study said Waste Management of California, which owns the lease at Weldon Canyon, also operates a landfill in Simi Valley. A Weldon Canyon site will give the company a near-monopoly of two of the three county landfills when Weldon Canyon becomes operational, Huntsinger said.

The group said that public ownership of a landfill at Hammond Canyon would save the county more than $50 million over 30 years.

Jim Jevins, a spokesman at Waste Management, called the study a “delaying tactic.”

“Weldon has been studied to death,” Jevins said.

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to decide Feb. 9 whether the environmental impact report for the Weldon Canyon proposal was performed adequately.